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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26487628">Hope Incorporated</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaurakahvi/pseuds/kaurakahvi'>kaurakahvi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Awkward Dates, Canon Compliant, Constructed Reality, Dark, Idiots in Love, Love at First Sight, M/M, Memory Loss, Phobias, Universe Alteration</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:14:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,451</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26487628</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaurakahvi/pseuds/kaurakahvi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's home, but it's wrong somehow. It's London, but it's not the same. It's Jon's life, but it's emptier. It's the present, but without the past. </p><p>Welcome to Hope Foundation Library. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. It rains (in London)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Note to myself: welcome to this fandom. Good job on starting and finishing your first fic half-way through the last season of the show because you just couldn't handle the truth, could you. The sweet, sweet embrace of fanfiction will always be there for you to use as a crutch when the canon makes you cry. The only downside is that you tend to make yourself cry, too. It's fine, really. Everything's fine.</p><p>Note to readers: Timeline is fuzzy but there's subtle and not-so-subtle spoilers up the kazoo all the way to episode 160, so be warned, and... good luck. There's going to be four chapters and a conclusion. I'm going to be posting one a day excluding on the fourth, when I'll be posting the last chapter and the conclusion at once. I'm not leaving you hanging for whatever the hell that last "chapter" is. And don't let the tags fool you, this is lightweight dark matter posing as transformative fiction. I just wanted to write boyfriends. Look what I've done.</p><p>Note to Basira, specifically: I'm sorry. It had to be someone. I know that doesn't make it any better.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p>The sound of rain brought with it a sense of dread so disproportionate to what should have been a pleasant, calming atmosphere, that its occurrence alone should have hinted at something being amiss. Yet even as Jonathan found himself barely able to catch his breath, expecting the sensation of <em>drowning </em>or something far worse than that, nothing seemed out of place - not at first, not in this moment. He was afraid of that sound, that cascading curtain of grey covering the view from his window. The apartment wasn't flooded, but he felt like he'd lived a flood once, somewhere... sometime - he'd been stuck in it, waiting to be submerged, with nowhere to run. His covers pooled over his lap as he stroked his arms all the way up to his shoulders like a man trying to warm himself up, rubbing only to feel alive, to feel anything at all that would convince him that that dreadful cold, wet embrace of rising waters was in his dream and not here in the reality.</p><p>That was when that sensation hit for the first time, like a sudden strike of vertigo. It unbalanced the horizon but only ever so slightly, making it jump like an earthquake, but only within Jon's own perception, yet still his hands charged to grip the sheets and he closed his eyes firmly, cursing under his breath. He didn't need this, not on top of the rain that was like nails on a chalkboard to his ears, anything - <em>anything </em>- but calming. He tried to reassure himself, tell himself that there were people who would voluntarily fall asleep to the soundtrack of rain every night, that they played it from their phones in the dark to lull themselves to a restful sleep, but it didn't make a difference. Something about the rain was like teeth against his skin and he hated every moment of it pounding the walls and windows of his hideout. And underneath it, that sense of... of something being amiss here, something being fundamentally <em>different</em> to how it had been before, but before what, he just couldn't wrap his mind around. There was an emptiness there where memory should have been, and the more he tried to grasp a hold of it, the further away it faded like a half-waking dream he'd had and which was now leaving him to make room for reality, only this seemed to be the other way around, like he was losing reality in exchange for a dream.</p><p>He reached out his hand, unwrapping his fingers from his sheets. The bed was empty, too empty and wide for his liking, and there was something in that fact that further assured him that something was not as it should have been, though it brought him no closer to remembering what in or how the world had changed. The empty bed haunted him, however. He didn't want to leave it, not only for the manner in which the rain was chaining him in place like roots growing around his limbs, but because he was certain that if he'd move - even as little as stretching out his legs - he'd end up losing that faint memory that he was chasing for good... and with it, he'd lose something important to him, something he wouldn't be able to ever replace. Still he could already feel that no matter how long he'd stay there, unmoving, barely breathing out of the suffocating feeling crushing his chest at the sound of the downpouring rain outside, he would eventually lose that memory... that no matter what he'd do, he wasn't supposed to remember, and it would be torn from him despite his attempts to hold onto it tooth and nail.</p><p>Slowly, he allowed himself to take in more than just the surface he'd woken up on. His senses opened up to reach away from the mattress, to the wooden frame of the bed that smelled faintly of varnish like it had been crafted yesterday, and from there to the white walls that surrounded him - a marble tomb, his mind unhelpfully offered. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. When he looked again, he was no longer entombed; instead, he sat in an open bedroom, illuminated by a large window letting in daylight through the heavy clouds casting water down at the earth. The room was airy, with its door slightly ajar, and it was clean, although Jon felt it was perhaps a little too clean, even for him, and especially for him and... the memory ached in his brain. He was so close to it that it was almost taunting him, staying just out of reach, and the more he struggled to grasp at it now the more he felt like perhaps he didn't want to find it after all - that maybe it was within reach, but he was holding himself back from it, even as he hoped against hope to remember. Something seemed to tell him: no, you don't want to know.</p><p>Let it go.</p><p>He shifted his leg, then the other, and dropped his feet on the floor. He lived nicely, but not too nicely. He'd made it a little haven for himself with all the comforts of a home in the heart of London, with the city buzzling outside, lively already at seven in the morning. He had bills on his table and a ring a cup of tea had left upon it next to them. He had a fridge full of food and some library books piled in front of the TV that looked like it was overdue for a dusting. He had a laptop, an old one with a busted corner, he did remember that, remembered how he'd lost his grip on it and it had fallen from a short distance only to land on that corner, and how he'd examined the screen first for cracks and found none, and then that corner where the plastic had shattered from the impact. Or did he remember it? It felt like a story he was telling himself to explain that crack now, a convincing little lie that slipped him so easily it might as well have been the truth but it wasn't, and yet he couldn't tell a better one so he had no choice but to accept it. When he moved into the kitchen, another thing struck him like a shock, but slowly, as it took him a good long while to realise what was amiss. There he was, standing in the middle of his lower middle class kitchen, looking around for his breakfast, for a newspaper laid out on the table and a cup of steaming tea set together with some toast and eggs, maybe, or maybe cereal if it had been a busy morning... a busy morning for whom?</p><p>Who would have laid out his breakfast, if not himself? What was he waiting for? He closed his eyes again. The room swayed gently underneath his feet.</p><p>No, he lived alone. He was certain of it. He'd always lived alone. Or had he? For a man well in his thirties, shouldn't he have had at least one significant relationship living together with somebody else? He couldn't remember one. In fact, he wasn't sure if he'd ever had a relationship to begin with. There was something there in the middle of everything that felt like a large black hole, a void where his life should have been, and before then it felt as much like a dream as the present moment, where nothing really seemed to be as he needed it, as he expected it to be.</p><p>But of course he'd had relationships. The realisation dawned to him like a printer spitting out a paper, line by line with the same kind of a crackling, hissing, mechanical sound carving it into his brain. He had to be sick. Had he been sick recently? Why wasn't he at work, anyway? His eyes wandered for a moment before he found the analog clock on the wall. Five past seven in the morning. Shouldn't he be going somewhere? Shouldn't he already <em>be</em> somewhere?</p><p>... where did he even work?</p><p>A weakness set him towards the kitchen table. He collapsed into a creaky chair and traced the circular stain in front of him with his index finger, his breathing a little erratic. He'd just had a strange dream, that was all. And maybe he'd been sick - maybe he was still sick. A sudden bout of amnesia was probably common somehow, to some people, somewhere, but if he didn't have everything figured out by noon he'd definitely have to call a doctor and schedule an appointment. Besides, he didn't feel ill, just out of place, like a chess piece on a checkers board, where everything seemed familiar enough to pass for normal yet different somehow, and there was that nagging feeling that he should have been somewhere else doing something very, <em>very </em>important, and each second he wasted here was a second further away from his destination.</p><p>"Breathe," he told himself. His voice was surprisingly clear against the thundering sound of autumn rain, and as if the command had come from someone else, he found it easier to fall into that rhythm of inhales and exhales, his focus turning inwards. As he felt himself calming down, he could sense another urge dawning from beneath the confusion: a drive to speak out his concerns, this mess of thoughts into some audible, tangible form. His hand felt about the table, blind as he was, until it hit a square object just as he'd expected it, and it fit in his hand perfectly as his fingers wrapped around it and brought it over. It was easy to sink down the record button, and as the tape started turning within, he found his breath releasing, becoming more steady and free than it had been until then.</p><p>"It's... seven in the morning. Seven thirteen, to be exact; it is raining. I'm not sure why I'm recording. Is this what I do? Is this - a form of journaling? I don't even have anything to say. I woke up fifteen minutes ago covered in sweat, and I think I had a nightmare. I can't remember a thing, but I feel like... I feel like I <em>should </em>remember. I feel like I've forgotten something important, something that I can't afford to lose entirely. That's not really the full truth. I feel like I've forgotten... everything. My whole life until now. Who I am. My name is Jonathan Sims. I live in London. I live alone, and I think something's wrong. I think I don't belong here."<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
The rain covered the whole of London. It reached even the underground, the echoing stations where the breaks of the incoming trains screamed through the shadows and the shimmering lights trying to break through the darkness that reigned the realm buried underneath the city, and even though the platform was packed with people, their voices sounded muffled and distant like they were far away from wherever Jon was, like there was a wall between them and him no matter how much he tried to break free. It wasn't a physical wall, and it wasn't an external one either, but this whole time he'd felt like he was moving in a fog towards a destination he wasn't entirely sure about, yet his feet were bringing him forwards and he was almost certain he was employed wherever he was headed, although he didn't really remember it, just felt it inside somewhere.</p><p>He was late, too. He should have been up earlier for this. Somehow, it... it didn't strike him as a problem. He didn't feel the rising anxiety within him that he assumed he should have felt at the notion of being late from work. The tube was packed, and the only dread he felt was something else entirely, something that he felt crawling up from deep within him, and it had very little to do with his schedule or even whether or not he was employed to begin with. It wasn't the consistent wrongness of everything about him either, not really, although it never left him at ease - no. This was a sensation that he felt all too familiar with, but couldn't place in time or reason with, yet every time someone looked at him, even if their eyes were merely passing by or through him like a ghost, he felt a jolt of fear within him. All of a sudden he didn't like the crowd anymore. It hadn't been comfortable before but now it was constricting... a space filled with <em>eyes</em>, not people but <em>eyes</em> that were watching him, eyes that saw him no matter the angle, eyes that perceived his every movement, and by the time he felt his station approaching, his breathing had turned shallow and fast and he stumbled out the opening doors as if drunk. Someone caught him - a woman - he apologised, but only in passing, because her eyes on him felt like they were burning holes into him.</p><p>That was how he made his way out of the underground. On the way up the escalator, which he felt he was climbing like a frantic animal, he caught the smell of burning and it alerted something further inside him that he couldn't place, and he thought of the train leaving somewhere behind him, heading for yet another dark tunnel under London. He didn't know exactly where it was headed next, but he was glad he was out of it; he wasn't sure if he could take another minute underground.</p><p>The rain had gone nowhere in the few minutes he'd spend travelling. When the tunnel finally ended he was standing in a street again, yet another street in London that looked exactly like any other, its sides lined with small boutiques: a bookstore, a craftstore, a store selling bags and shoes, a hair salon. He had to catch his breath there, his eyes staring emptily into the river of rainwater running at his feet.</p><p>Were all his mornings like this? Slowly, Jon reached into his pocket and brought up his phone; it had been thirty minutes since he'd left his flat, or the flat that pretended to be his and which he pretended was his in turn. It felt like a lot more time had passed - like he'd been trapped in that train for hours - but here he was, breathing fresh air in the rain, and although the street was positively flooding it was not <em>flooded</em>, and nothing was really out of the ordinary at all. His ears were ringing: maybe he did need a doctor. Blindly, although he was now looking forwards and trying to ignore the fact that everywhere around him other eyes were seeing and they were seeing <em>him</em>, he started to move again. Forwards and forwards he went towards a destination he wasn't quite sure about until he hit it: the Hope Foundation Library. Did he work there? He pushed through the doors and entered a silence.</p><p>The moment Jon was inside, the feeling of being watched left him. He now noticed for the first time that he was dripping wet, and maybe that had been the reason he'd felt so many eyes on him the whole journey. He didn't have an umbrella, he didn't have a raincoat, all he had was his dripping wet hair with water running down to his dripping wet shoulders and the nagging feeling of having very recently been very, very lost, but here, he finally had a feeling that he'd arrived somewhere - somewhere he was meant to be. He ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath to shed the shakiness from his limbs, and the dusty smell of books filled his senses in a single wave, replacing the smell of the weather outside and the streets it was washing clean. Still he hesitated when he took his first steps inside, wandering through the rows of bookshelves towards the back of the labyrinthian hall: here and there sat men and women reading books or writing down notes, and in one corner, huddled in a large green bean bag chair, lay a woman with a book in her hands next to a little boy.</p><p>Not one of them was looking at Jon as he passed, quietly and hoping desperately to remain as unseen as he was. His prayers were answered. No one lifted their gaze.</p><p>"Hey, Jon," a female voice called just when he'd concluded he was invisible. "You're late."</p><p>Jon jolted, but although the surprise was uncomfortable, he found it relieving at the same time. If someone here knew his name, then he belonged here. He turned his gaze to find a familiar figure: Basira Hussain stood there, leaning to a bookshelf next to a basket full of recently returned books she was filing back in order. Her eyes didn't feel as piercing as those of the strangers outside. He didn't feel so <em>seen</em> under her watch, simply regarded, and the sensation was much more pleasant than that which he'd experienced in the tube.</p><p>"I know," he said simply. What else could he have possibly said without raising alarm and being instantly turned back into the downpour to see a doctor for his sudden-onset amnesia?</p><p>"That's it? No explanation?"</p><p>He shook his head.</p><p>"Fine," Basira sighed. She bent down to lift up her basket and offered it towards him. "This is yours, anyway. Have fun."</p><p>The basket was heavy and the smell of books inside it strong. Even though the aura of the library was peaceful, Jon was slowly realising that he didn't really like the books inside it. He didn't like or <em>trust</em> their look or their smell, or the way they felt when he held them, or the way they weighted down the basket. He looked down at them and wondered what was inside each of those covers. Should he take a look?</p><p>"What are they?" he asked hesitantly.</p><p>"What do you mean? They're books, Jon. You're in a library."</p><p>He sighed.<br/>
"That's not what I mean. I mean what kinds of books are they? Anything special?"</p><p>"Nothing more than the usual," Basira shrugged; she was squinting at him, although carefully, so that he might have not noticed if he hadn't expected it. "Returns and misfiles. Why do you ask? Are you looking for something?"</p><p>Jon shook his head.<br/>
"Nothing in particular. I'll - I'll get to it."</p><p>"Good. There's plenty more to go, which I suppose is my problem now. I'll see you around, if we ever bump into each other in here again."</p><p>Jon nodded, although by then Basira had already turned and was well on her way away from him. The basket in his hands grew heavier and he crouched down to place it on the floor. In the silence that now returned upon him he traced his fingertips over the backs of some of the books within, wondering if he was really looking for something in specific - if he was expecting something, something unpleasant perhaps, but he couldn't trace the thought to anything meaningful. He was beginning to notice however that quite a few thoroughly mundane things felt deeply unpleasant to him, and he couldn't help but wonder why; he'd felt this way not only about the books but about the rain, about the underground tunnels, about the train itself, and about all the bypassers who'd so much as glanced in his direction. Maybe he was having some sort of a mental breakdown: that would easily explain the amnesia and the growing list of phobias he couldn't reason with, such as the one he felt for the books now, although as he examined each and every one of them before placing them in their rightful spots in the shelves, that sense of fear gradually faded into the background. Whatever it was that he was afraid of picking up from the basket clearly wasn't there. These were just books: books about mammals, books about mysteries, books about recently divorced women on tours around the world, books about cooking and baking and knitting. <em>Ordinary</em> books. He felt like if there had been something that he was looking for, it wasn't ordinary. He would have recognised it, he was sure of it.</p><p>Working came to him easily, as if he'd been sending and putting books away his whole life. It was easy not to think about the nagging wrongness about him that he couldn't grasp at when he had his hands full, even though the rain outside never let go of the city, and even though its echoes haunted the silence of the library's hallways. It wasn't packed, but there wasn't a moment when it was empty, either: people came and went, faces changing for new ones every time another decided to end their studies for the day or found just the right books to check out, or when whatever they were reading was finally over, devoured from cover to cover. Jon watched them from behind his desk, his mind now slowly becoming just another vessel for the rain, its all-consuming yet subtle white noise backdropping his every thought. When he got up for a glass of water, however, he caught a glimpse of something that shed every little shred of peace from his mind that he'd managed to scrape together throughout the morning. In an instant his heart was racing and his limbs felt weak and he let out a soft breath that disappeared in the dull, soundless atmosphere of the library without a trace.</p><p>The man couldn't have been more familiar: his shape, huddled over a book with his hand wrapped around a cup of tea that he most definitely was not allowed to have near the books, was like second nature to Jon. His hair falling down his forehead, his soft gaze now sharpened over the lines he was reading, his aura of strange isolation and absolute focus... it struck out whatever had resided within Jon and replaced it with a desperate buzzing, a need to rush over to him and - and something, <em>something</em>.</p><p>Instead, Jon walked over to him, wondering if he was intruding - wondering if he was welcome.</p><p>"Hey, Martin."</p><p>Martin lifted his head. It took him a moment to focus his gaze but when it landed over Jon, a smile broke over his features and he looked... a little dazed, perhaps, but the solitude that had enveloped him a moment before seemed to fade and Jon felt like he'd been accepted into that little bubble with him. He couldn't help his smile, even though it felt stiff on his face. Was that just how he smiled in general?</p><p>"Hey, Jon."</p><p>Martin's voice played a sequence of memories in Jon's mind. They came in rushing like a river and he had a difficult time getting a hold of any single one, but information seemed to return to him unlike he'd felt all morning, the mist of amnesia breaking to let in just a sliver of light.</p><p>"I had a dream about you," Jon told him, although this was news to him, too, "Well - it was really just <em>about</em> you."</p><p>"Really? What was it?"</p><p>"You went missing. We were looking everywhere. I don't think I worked here, though. It was somewhere else. I'm... actually not sure who "we" were, either."</p><p>Martin chuckled quietly. He shifted his tea to the side and let his eyes rest upon it, and Jon could see the slightest hint of blush growing about his cheekbones.<br/>
"Dreams can be strange. I'm not missing, Jon. I've been here the whole time. Speaking of..."<br/>
He lifted his gaze back to Jon.<br/>
"How are you feeling?"</p><p>The dreaded question. Jon let out a small breath and shook his head, the smile on him turning ever more stiff.<br/>
"I'm fine. Other than for, well, I'm still... damp."</p><p>"Forgot your umbrella home again?"</p><p>"Seems that I did."</p><p>"You'll catch another cold," Martin warned him, "You should really try to take care of yourself more."</p><p>'Another cold' seemed to imply he'd already had one, Jon noted. It should have been a crucial crumb of information for whatever the hell had happened to him before, but he couldn't bring himself to believe it - he didn't feel the way he would have if he'd had a cold or indeed been ill at all. He felt perfectly fine. If he'd been the one missing, well, it was something else entirely. He lingered for a moment before realising he didn't have anything else to say and the silence was stretching, so he made a move to turn back, then hesitated; he didn't want to go. He wanted to say something more, but the things he wanted to speak of were locked in that fog that never shifted, no matter the little holes his memory of his dream had poked in them. Should he tell Martin about that - the whole thing about the amnesia, the fact that he couldn't really remember where he'd been the past week, or even really past that? The fact that he really couldn't remember working in this library ever before, even though it was clear he'd been employed for a while now? He decided against it. Martin didn't need to know that he was going crazy. It wasn't Martin's problem. He was just... trying to do his work - reading books and drinking tea on top of them.</p><p>The corner of Jon's mouth twitched.<br/>
"You know you're not supposed to have that anywhere near the books, right?" he said then, his voice caught between the tones of low, growly amusement and the stern seriousness with which a superior would address an employee. He assumed he was in a higher position than Martin, though where this assumption came from, he wasn't sure; either way, Martin's eyes darted towards his tea again and he grimaced with embarrasment.</p><p>"Yeah, I... I know, I'm sorry, Jon. I was just - it's a good book. I felt like it needed a cup of tea to reach its full potential."</p><p>"What are you reading?"</p><p>Martin flipped the book closed, his fingers between the pages where he was reading. <em>The Historian</em>, the title read.<br/>
"It's about... vampires, I think. I'm not far enough to know for certain yet, but it was in the fantasy section, so..."</p><p>Jon nodded.<br/>
"Just - don't spill any on it, alright?"</p><p>Martin looked at him with a small smile and nodded.<br/>
"I'll do my best."</p><p>It was with that that Jon turned to leave. He didn't manage to move further than a few feet before turning around again, if only half-way.<br/>
"Hey, Martin?" he called.</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"Since when have you called me 'Jon' anyway?"</p><p>"Oh," Martin answered, and now the blush on his cheeks was clearly visible. "Do you - do you want me to stop? I - I mean, I can just call you Jonathan, it just - I guess it felt natural? I don't know. I'm really sorry."</p><p>"No, I... I like it," Jon admitted. "I just - I don't remember you calling me that before."</p><p>"Yeah, it's... I don't know. I'm... I'm sorry."</p><p>"Don't be."</p><p>"Alright. Well..."</p><p>"Well, yes."</p><p>A silence.</p><p>"I'll be - getting back to work, then," Jon broke it with. He felt rather ridiculous standing there now.</p><p>Martin nodded; he had a smile on him that looked a little melancholic in a way that made Jon wish he could mend it, but even as he turned away from it he felt his own smile softening. He couldn't help it, but he did scold himself for it. They were coworkers. Casual friends at best. That was it. He had no business feeling this way about Martin, like he wanted to reach out to him and brush his cheek to make his smile brighter - but it wasn't something he could reason with. The fog inside his mind wasn't lifting, yet he knew this wasn't the first time he'd faced these feelings, and he didn't find himself at all surprised by them, only defeated. What good was this knowledge to him? So he was pining over his coworker, his subordinate, whom likely didn't even have the potential to be interested in a man to begin with. Maybe he would have been better off forgetting that and remembering something that didn't involve one-sided feelings, like this supposed <em>cold</em> that he'd been suffering the past week.</p><p>The more he thought of it, the less he believed he'd had a cold in months.<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
The rain was still coming down in the late afternoon. Jon pressed his back into the Hope Foundation Library's cold stone wall and stared into the distance with his arms crossed over his chest, measuring the distance between himself and the tube station, calculating silently which way would spare him from getting drenched, if any. He didn't <em>want</em> to go back in the underground - the very thought of it filled him with a sense of impending doom and the lingering smell of burning entered his nostrils whenever he let his thoughts dwell on it for too long, but he was very determined not to give those thoughts much room, or as little as he humanely could. It was just the tube, he told himself; people travelled it every day without issue. No burning, no... crushing, or whatever it was that his imagination kept offering to him. No need to think of the weight of the ground above and around him, the suffocating pressure of it when the tunnel collapsed, or when it would grow smaller and smaller around him like a tight cave through which the train was trying to squeeze through, its frame bending with the deafening, thunderous screams of metal folding in on itself.</p><p>No need to think of any of that, and yet, here he was most certainly thinking of it.</p><p>He shuddered. So he was claustrophobic, then; if so, then what was the word for someone who feared the rain? This wasn't a storm and there was no thunder, yet the very sound of the rain itself was something that unnerved him, and he couldn't truly stop himself from measuring the rivulets of water rushing down the sides of the road. Was it growing? Was it deeper than it had been before? Were the sewers still drinking the excess, or was it pooling there, waiting for more and more to come down until it would flood and submerge everything? Submerge him, the library, the city... the whole world? Would it ever stop? He feared that it wouldn't. That was just it - he was afraid that the rain would never cease, and that eventually, the earth would be quenched. As if he'd never experienced rain before.</p><p>His eyes had glassed over, and the distance between him and the underground station had grown into a half-processed memory. It took him a while to notice that his fingertips were clawing over the pockets of his trousers, looking for something and finding a shape that he didn't remember being there before - a square, a solid square that pressed into his thigh as he opened up the mouth of the pocket and fished it out. It was a tape, presumably for the recorder he had at home, but it had no identifying label on it and Jon was almost certain it was empty, but he wasn't sure it had been there the whole day. Surely he would have noticed it at some point, or began to absently touch it like he'd done now, but what was the alternative? He slipped it back in his pocket and waited for something, perhaps for the rain to end. It kept pouring, and the cars kept passing, and the pedestrians kept walking past him with their umbrellas keeping them dry. None of them seemed to be concerned about the impending flood that Jon was all but certain was coming now. He tried to calm himself again. Even if the city was going to flood, there was nothing he could do about it, and if he didn't want to take the underground, he'd have to walk.</p><p>And walk he did. At first, he was fairly confident which route to take, but the longer he walked (and the more wet he got), the less he recognised his surroundings. There was nothing unusual about that, and it wasn't even because of the memory loss that had left him fumbling for the most mundane details of his existence, but he'd simply never <em>walked</em> the whole way back. Maybe he had a car, or maybe his claustrophobia was something he'd developed out of the blue with the fog that denied him access to his prior life, but the way back home was long like a journey and in the rain it felt doubly so: he had to stop a few times to search up a map on his phone, trying to decipher which way to head before the raindrops made the screen illegible. It took him nearly two hours to reach his destination, and by the time he was climbing up the steep staircase to his apartment he was shaking with cold and his legs barely bent from the chill, and yet he felt achieved, almost <em>proud</em> of himself for making it all the way back there without submitting himself to the tunnels snaking beneath the streets. In some twisted sense he'd beat the game. Certainly, he'd been stared at by some pedestrians he'd passed, but in comparison to the amount of eyes that moved upon him and the gazes that swept him through in the tube, those few glances were nothing. Yes, he'd looked like a miserable stray tomcat slinking through the wet streets like that, and yes, it was pointless and absurd to choose walking in this weather over the comfort of public transport, but hadn't he won? Wasn't this a victory?</p><p>He closed the door behind himself and began to peel his wet clothes off his body like thick strips of skin. Once down to nothing but a pair of comfortably warm pyjama pants, he had only one destination in mind, and he reached it with the slippery tape from his pocket in hand. He placed it next to the recorder and continued where he'd left off from there.</p><p>"It's now - it's almost seven in the evening. The rain's still going. Did I say I don't know what I'm supposed to say, or why I'm recording in the first place? I have this... drive, this urge, to record, but I don't know what I'm recording, not exactly. My voice? My thoughts? The remarkable events that didn't happen today?"</p><p>He paused for a moment, and the tape recorder's whirring was the only sound beyond that of the rain. It was now coming down harder again and he was almost certain he'd heard thunder a minute ago, but it had been far away, too far to be certain. He closed his eyes and crossed his hands on the table.</p><p>"My name is Jonathan Sims. I live in London. I live alone, and I'm a librarian, or at least no one threw me out when I pretended to be one today. I work with Basira Hussain and Martin Blackwood. I'm afraid of everything. This is what I know about myself. I'm - I'm in my thirties. That's... it, I suppose. A miserable amount of knowledge for someone who's supposed to be <em>me</em>. I promised myself I'd go to the doctor if my memory didn't return by noon, but here I am, and I haven't made a move to get myself an appointment or go to the hospital. Instead, I've made my way through the day pretending I know what I'm doing. I don't.</p><p>Let me describe something else, like the way I feel about the rain: I have this nagging fear that it won't end. That tomorrow, I'll wake up alone in this apartment, and everything else will be gone. That it'll flood everything, and there's nothing I can do. I fear that the underground will collapse on me, so I walked home in the storm. It took me two hours or so - I'm not sure. I wasn't taking time. I just walked. Half the time I wasn't sure where I was going. Have I always lived here? God, I have so many questions, and not one answer. The worst thing is, I... don't think I'm concerned enough about any of this. Sure it's uncomfortable, and definitely inconvenient, but I'm not overly bothered by it, not the amnesia, not the fears... not the fact that I don't think I should be here at all. I just am, and it seems that I'm somehow content with that. I know I shouldn't be. I know I should be afraid of that - not the rain or the public transport, but my own condition, my... paranoia, or the fact that I might be having delusions, some kind of a breakdown. And yet it really doesn't worry me too much. I've accepted it. I never struggled to accept it, discounting those first few minutes this morning when I woke up and I knew everything was wrong somehow.</p><p>I feel like the more I remember, the more I'm forgetting. That whatever knowledge I should be having is being buried underneath the information I'm taking in. I'm a librarian. It didn't sound right when I first said it, but I've accepted it now. I live in this apartment. Yes, I'm sure I do. So why did I question it a moment ago, and why don't I question it now?"</p><p>He paused again, but this time he didn't return to the tape immediately: instead, he picked up the recorder and put on the kettle.</p><p>"I like tea," he stated then, "There was a stain on the table this morning. It's... yep, it's still there. Alright. I knew that already, that I like tea, it's the kind of a thing you just <em>know</em> about yourself, but I have proof that I've always liked tea, or at least before this morning. I - I know I'm... I like men. I think I do like women, too, but I didn't think about that much today. Instead, I seem to have feelings for my coworker, Martin. That's something I should know about myself, isn't it? And yet I didn't remember Martin existed until I saw him in the library today. I wasn't thinking of him once before he was there. You'd think I'd remember something like that."</p><p>The natural light was fading, and with the clouds covering the sky, it was by now almost gone entirely. Instead, the street lights glowed from down below, their light bouncing from the mist and the frames of the kitchen window, and Jon watched those reflections for some time before continuing.</p><p>"I felt something was missing this morning. I felt like I was supposed to live with someone, to wake up next to someone, to share breakfast with someone. Did I have another dream about him? Something else than the dream he went missing in? He seemed to know me well enough when I came to him. He wasn't surprised to see me, or at least I couldn't tell that he was, and certainly not like I was surprised to see him. Why <em>am</em> I recording this? What's so important about this that I have to recount it?</p><p>I'm going to have a cup of tea and then I'm turning in, and by God I hope that I've recovered by tomorrow. I don't want to go another day feeling my way through like I've gone blind. I don't want to have another person appear out of thin air into my life while my heart tells me they're the most important thing I've ever reached for. Should I... should I talk to him more? Should I talk to someone - about this, or about anything? I don't feel like I talk too much. Maybe all I do is record my thoughts and avoid other people. That's another thing that I hate... that makes me feel afraid: being watched. I don't want to be seen. By anyone. I just want to be left alone."<br/>
He sighed.<br/>
"End recording."</p><p>The kettle was whistling, and its whistle almost covered the sound the tape recorder made when Jon pressed the button to stop it. Without it, he felt alone again - unnaturally alone, like he hadn't truly been on his own in years.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Do we do this often?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/>
<p><br/>His sleep was patchy, fitful and restless, although when he felt consciousness trickling back into him, Jon couldn't recall much of the dreams he'd had in the night. What he did notice very soon, however, was that his white curtains were letting in sunlight, and the sound of traffic came clearly in through the window - by the sound of it, a bus had just taken off from below his window where he recalled seeing a stop the night before. In that groggy, half-waking state he felt disappointment seeping into him already: he hadn't regained his memory, it seemed, as if he had, he'd surely have remembered whether or not he lived above a bus stop. A small sound escaped him as he prepared to open his eyes, but when he did, a different feeling washed in, replacing the disappointment. It was surprise.</p>
<p>The rain was gone, and Jon hadn't expected that. In fact, he'd been convinced upon waking up that the first thing he'd hear would be the ceaseless sound of a downpour, and for a moment, he had indeed heard it. Now that his eyes were open and peering at the piece of white overcast sky that was nevertheless not spitting down any water whatsoever, he realised that the sound he'd thought had been rain was just traffic echoing from the buildings on his street and beyond.</p>
<p>The day looked cold and windy, but it wasn't nor did it promise a storm. Yesterday had passed, and it had taken the rain with it.</p>
<p>That, at least, was hopeful. That was... unexpected.</p>
<p>"I feel ridiculous," he stated into his recorder over a cup of tea and a hastily buttered slice of toast, "I don't really know what I expected, or rather, why I expected it. Do sane people wait every day for the world to experience another biblical flood? I don't think so. The weather's not <em>clear</em> but it's certainly not apocalyptic outside. The streets are drying up. There's a woman walking a dog. Everything looks so damn normal, but I keep expecting some kind of a disaster to strike. Martin said I'd been ill. Maybe it wasn't a cold and I was lying to him - maybe I did have a - a breakdown or... something like that. It would explain many things, and yet... I feel it's too simple. Too convenient. I don't think I will have an easy explanation for all of this. What I do know is that today I'm taking the bus to work. I'll report later how that went, or if I don't, just assume it went just fine and I forgot to mention it."</p>
<p>He bit into his toast and chewed in silence.</p>
<p>"I want to talk to Martin again. I should probably come up with something to say before I see him this time. I don't want to repeat whatever happened yesterday. That conversation was a disaster. End recording."</p>
<p>The sound of the stop button clicking brought some minor comfort to Jon. He turned his eyes back out the window and gazed into the windy day, his chest lighter with every passing moment the rain wasn't coming down. He'd been wrong - funny how much <em>better</em> that made him feel. He had a distinct feeling he wasn't so good at being wrong most the time.</p>
<p>Travel by bus was much more pleasant than the underground, but all throughout the journey Jon couldn't shake the eyes off of him. He felt like the whole world was still watching him, even when he was sure no one was watching. It was like an itch he couldn't scratch; when no one was looking at him, he was expecting them to, and that anticipation of just when their gaze would turn to him was almost as unbearable as the feeling of his stomach dropping when they finally did. There was a stop right next to the library: it was even named for it, so it was difficult to miss even if the building itself hadn't stuck out so much. It was a modern building, made out of steel and glass and white stone wall, and the lights within shone outside just as much as the light outside shone in. This morning Jon took his time to examine it as he approached, and he noticed that it gave him almost a peaceful feeling, like he was <em>welcome</em> there, and it wasn't so easy to miss now that he wasn't so worried about the weather. It had an aura of safety, almost like it and its perimeter would stave off whatever horrors lurked its outside, although even then its <em>contents</em> worried Jon the same as they had before. He still didn't know what he was looking for amongst the books, not even when he entered the library now, but he felt nervous passing by especially the older copies, the more rugged backs staring him down from the shelves. Basira was there, and she greeted him casually as he passed. He nodded at her with a polite smile, and then settled behind his desk only for her to appear in front of him with another basket of books.</p>
<p>"Did you think you were going to get off easy today? No way, boss," she said with a dry chuckle as she planted the basket in front of him. "We've got lots of books to sort out and you're on it. Martin's in there somewhere doing the same thing. Get up."</p>
<p>"And here I thought I'd have a nice, quiet morning," Jon sighed. "Now you're putting me to work. Shouldn't this go the other way?"</p>
<p>"Sure. You can try," Basira told him.</p>
<p>He gave her a defeated laugh and shook his head, pushing himself up by the table.<br/>"So you're manning the desk."</p>
<p>"I sat down first. It's mine now. You can join me if we get a crowd, but it's eight in the morning, I don't think there's going to be one anytime soon."</p>
<p>"Fine. Alright. I've got the message."</p>
<p>The basket was heavy when Jon pulled it against his chest and wrapped it in a tight embrace. Basira had a look of carefully concealed surprise on her, but she couldn't hold back the crooked smile that betrayed it; she leaned to the desk and raised a brow at him.</p>
<p>"Really, it's that easy to boss you around?"</p>
<p>"I don't see a reason to argue, Basira. You're right. There's no crowd, and we have books to sort back into the shelves. I think that's part of my job description: sort things, organize things. I might as well do it."</p>
<p>"Fair enough," Basira chuckled.</p>
<p>She sat down with a sigh and stretched her arms as Jon turned from her and made his way between the shelves. There seemed to be an infinite amount of them: there were two floors to the library, and the second floor was just as full of books and bookshelves as the first one, and there were more baskets lurking out there somewhere waiting to be picked up and emptied. Still, he wasn't in any particular hurry: once he was safely out of Basira's sight, Jon dropped the basket on an empty table and started flipping the books over one by one, giving them each a brief look before dismissing them. He reorganized them by genre and author's name to make it easier to sort them into the shelves later, but it wasn't the reason he was doing this in the first place - he was still looking for something that he was afraid he'd find with each and every book he picked up, even though he had little idea what it could be. None of the books seemed in any manner dangerous or hostile to him, at least not until he picked up one of the bottom ones and a spider charged across its cover.</p>
<p>He was glad no one saw him then, that the pathway between the shelves was empty and he was alone, because the moment his brain registered what was skittering over the covers of "Roverandom" by J. R. R. Tolkien, he positively flung the book as far away from himself as possible and recoiled from the basket itself like it had suddenly burst in flames beside him. It took him a moment to get a hold of himself and when he did, he felt a rush of heat over his cheeks. Even though he knew well he was alone in that little nook he'd chosen he still cast a glance around himself to make sure no one had seen him. No one had, so he inched forwards to the book he'd thrown - it lay on the floor looking rather indignified if largely unharmed, with a single corner of its cover worse for the wear from the impact with the floor. He dropped down near it and pushed it a few centimetres along the floor to each direction as if in an attempt to shake it without really touching it, but no spiders emerged from it, and so he picked it up carefully and stood back up, holding it at an arm's length for a moment before finally relaxing and letting his arm bend. With his fingertip he turned the front cover and revealed the yellowed white expanse of its very first page: it had a stamp upon it.</p>
<p>
  <em>Hope Foundation Library - London.</em>
</p>
<p>"Everything alright?"</p>
<p>Martin's voice made him jump again, but this time, the book stayed firmly in Jon's hand. He turned his head towards the voice even though his gaze couldn't quite reach as far behind him as the source of the voice stood, but he felt hesitant to reveal himself fully before he was certain his eyes were no longer wide as a spooked deer's.</p>
<p>"Why wouldn't it be?" he asked, attempting to sound like he wasn't lying.</p>
<p>"It's just - I heard a noise."</p>
<p>"I dropped a book, Martin. What do you want?"</p>
<p>Finally Jon turned. He wore a small, irritated frown on his features as he did so, less because of the interruption and more simply due to being found in such a compromised state - he was angry at himself for such an overreaction, and even more the fact that he'd managed to alert attention to it. He threw his head to the side as if to shake off hair from his face and lifted the book he was holding.</p>
<p>"Oh," Martin replied, his voice insecure and... hurt, perhaps, from being confronted with the sharpness that Jon had spoken with. "Nothing. I was just - I was looking for you."</p>
<p>"And?"</p>
<p>Despite the way it stung even him as he spoke, Jon couldn't shake the irritation from his voice. Martin grimaced a little, shifting in place as if already half-escaping the situation - but then he seemed to think better of it, and instead of going he rooted himself in place and looked Jon in the eye.</p>
<p>"I wanted to know if you'd like a cup of tea. It's cold outside and you just came in," he said, and his voice gained confidence with each spoken word until he almost sounded as grounded as he looked. Still, his eyes retained that pleading look; he didn't want to get shouted at.</p>
<p>Jon didn't want to shout at him. He took a breath and forced his shoulders to relax when he exhaled again. The book was discarded into the basket on top of the rows of books he'd organized inside. This wasn't Martin's fault and he didn't need to be taking out his problems on him. This also wasn't the conversation he'd wanted this morning, but - it wasn't too late to save it yet, was it?</p>
<p>"I'm sorry, Martin. I didn't - I didn't mean to snap at you."</p>
<p>"It's quite alright, really."</p>
<p>"No, it isn't. But a cup of tea sounds... thank you, Martin, I think I could use that."</p>
<p>A careful smile spread onto Martin's lips. He nodded.</p>
<p>"Do you need help with that?" the man asked him, nodding towards the basket. "I finished with mine and I can take it if you'd like."</p>
<p>"No, I'm... It's fine. I've already done most of the work," Jon told him and let his fingers rest on top of the book he'd just placed in the basket again. "All I need to do now is just walk around and finish it."</p>
<p>"Alright, then. I'll pick another one up from the back and, well, I'll - see you soon? If you don't mind drinking your tea around the books, that is."<br/>Martin had a cautious little spark of teasing to his look that Jon found himself huffing warmly at.</p>
<p>"I suppose I'll just have to be careful," he said.</p>
<p>He could still feel a pleasant buzzing within his body after Martin had left him with his spider-spawning basket in the empty corridor between the shelves. In fact, that cold of adrenaline was gone now entirely, and so was most of his irritation, or at least the latter had faded into the background. Jon leaned down to the table and closed his eyes and let his lips curve into a smile, and he stayed there in his small bubble for a good moment before slowly returning to the library hall. His awareness caught first onto the basket in front of him, and with a grunt of suspicion he pushed around the books inside to look for more unwanted passengers, but it was empty as far as he could see and with that he finally picked it up and began to unload it. <em>Roverandom</em> was the first book he returned, both because he couldn't be happier to be rid of it and because the fantasy section was rather close to him - he only had to pass by the crime novels, where he then returned to put three books in their correct places. He was just about done when Martin found him with a cup of tea.</p>
<p>"Want me to... hold it, while you finish up?" Martin asked him, glancing at the two remaining books in the basket.</p>
<p>"Yes, that... would probably be for the best."</p>
<p>So they tracked down the last category - traditional medicine from the self-help section - and Jon unloaded the last of his books there. He was starting to notice something, something he wasn't quite sure of just yet, but he felt like Martin was both avoiding to look at him and even when he did, even if he seemed to forget himself there for a minute, his gaze didn't make Jon feel like he was being watched. In fact, he felt confident in Martin's presence, and that confidence was a stark contrast to the way he felt away from him. In fact, it was only in Martin's company that he was noticing that he felt quite exposed and vulnerable everywhere else even when he wasn't feeling those misplaced and sudden waves of fear at whatever ordinary thing it was this time that his subconsciousness decided was a deadly danger to him.</p>
<p>He leaned his back to the bookcase and nodded at Martin, who stumbled over himself to hand him the cup he'd patiently carried through the library. Jon almost felt bad for telling him off for drinking tea over a book yesterday, as now he was doing the same next to a couple hundred of them, but he ignored his own hypocricy and dipped his lips into the drink instead.</p>
<p><em>I've always liked the tea Martin makes,</em> he thought to himself, and then his brows knit close again and his eyes narrowed, and he lowered the cup down.</p>
<p>"Martin?"</p>
<p>"Yes?" Martin offered in an instant; he seemed to have been hovering about uncertain if he'd been dismissed or not, and the fact that Jon had called his name had clearly come off as a surprise.</p>
<p>"This might sound like a weird question, but - do we do this often?" Jon asked him, his gaze down and upon the tea.</p>
<p>"What? Do - do what? I'm sorry."</p>
<p>"Do you bring me tea often?"</p>
<p>"No, I - I don't think so, no. Just sometimes. You know, I think you usually tell me no, but it's the only thing I can - well, I just feel like it's polite to offer, anyway."</p>
<p>That hint of bitterness, the unsweetened depth to the taste, this specific blend... Jon knew it all by heart.<br/>"Thank you," he replied in a quiet, low voice, the words connecting to little they'd been speaking of.</p>
<p>"It's nice on a cold day like this, isn't it?" Martin asked, his voice tinted by the smile he wore.</p>
<p>Jon nodded slowly, but his thoughts weren't there.<br/>"Yes, it's..."<br/>His words trailed off.</p>
<p>"Well... well, then," Martin continued after a moment's silence, "I better get working. Or you'll have to tell me off, I suppose. Heh."</p>
<p>Jon nodded again.</p>
<p>"Jon, can I... ask you... something?"</p>
<p>The change in his tone drew Jon's attention back at him. He'd barely been listening, which likely showed from his face when he turned to face Martin. Martin flashed him an awkward smile and shrugged.</p>
<p>"It's nothing, really," he rushed to cover up for himself without ever so much as attempting to speak his question first, "I'm really expecting you to say no, anyway."</p>
<p>"What is it?"</p>
<p>"Well," Martin started over, hesitating, "I was just - I wanted to ask what you're doing, you know, after work... today or - or tomorrow, or - well - what... do you generally do after work?"</p>
<p>Jon lifted a brow and brought his cup back to his lips.<br/>"Nothing," he said then, which was really the most honest he could be about it with the lack of information he had about his own habits and routines.<br/>He'd planned to go back home, record another entry to his tapes to the void, and then spend the rest of the night trying to dig at his brain for information about who he was supposed to be and what his life was meant to be like. It really all came back to "nothing" - nothing he could tell Martin about, anyway.</p>
<p>"Okay. Alright, so... would you like, and - and I know you're probably busy, you're probably saying 'nothing' because it's none of my business and it <em>really</em> isn't, but - I'm also doing... nothing, and I was wondering if you'd, well, if you'd want to get a bite to eat after work sometime?"</p>
<p>Before Jon could more than barely process the invitation, Martin had already drawn another breath and started speaking.</p>
<p>"Nothing special, of course, I - I don't have any agenda, I just, I thought it might be nice to... get to know each other? More?"</p>
<p>The windows were beginning to show droplets of water; the rain was back. Jon's eyes strayed towards the sight for a moment as he set to determine whether it was a threat or not, but the rain was barely a drizzle, matching well the cold grey weather reflecting inwards through the windows. Then he returned his gaze to Martin and realised at once that he was blushing, and that Martin was blushing, too; for once he was glad that at least it would be more difficult to read from his own features than Martin's.</p>
<p>"Well, I'm - I'm not doing anything else," he said, and a burst of warmth crawled into his icy fingertips and toes and left his heart beating a little faster than it had before.</p>
<p>"I don't want to bother you or anything," Martin hurried to say although he looked relieved at Jon's response, "I just - I don't know how to say this, Jon. I just, I think we're friends, and I think it'd be nice to, you know, be better friends. I want to know stuff about you and - and we don't really get a chance to talk at work, I mean, we're wasting time right now, aren't we? So... yeah, I just - I figured I'd ask."</p>
<p>Friends. Jon drew in a breath trying his hardest not to show just how long and deep it was, and let it out in a similar manner, fully aware of Martin's eyes on him yet they still lacked that invasive quality most other eyes seemed to have, and although he did feel self-conscious under his gaze, it didn't alarm him.</p>
<p>"Yes," he replied then, examining Martin's expression as he spoke, "I think that would be... Martin, you didn't specify <em>when</em>."</p>
<p>"Oh," Martin breathed out, "I don't - if you've got nothing after work today, we could...?"</p>
<p>Jon huffed warmly.<br/>"I don't have any other plans. Thank you for the tea, Martin."</p>
<p>"You're... you're welcome. I'll just -"</p>
<p>"Yes."</p>
<p>"Alright, then."</p>
<p>And with that, Martin was gone. Had that gone much better than the previous conversation? Jon sipped his tea that had by now began to cool down and decided that he wasn't certain, but there was one thing he was nearly positive about: he'd just been asked out, and he liked that very much.<br/><br/></p>
<hr/>
<p><br/>The drizzle had turned into a light curtain of mist by the time Jon was out. He stood idly outside in an uncomfortable throwback to the previous day, but this time, he wasn't looking anywhere near the tube station. Instead, he was watching the library door and everyone who walked through it, and as he waited, he was beginning to notice that some people caught his attention more than others. Very few were remarkable, and when one such person walked past, he couldn't tell what about them was so compelling to him but he had a distinctive urge to stop them and speak with them regardless even though he had little idea what he could have possibly needed to say to a stranger. Yet he knew somewhere within that the right words would come should he just take that one step to stop them in their tracks to start with. It was a strange feeling, but strangeness seemed to be the only constant in his post-amnesiac state, and in a manner it was becoming comforting - a state of familiarity, even when all his circumstances were still largely unknown to him.</p>
<p>When Martin finally appeared, he had a flustered aura about him; he didn't seem to expect Jon standing where he was and jumped a little when he turned his gaze and saw him there.</p>
<p>"Oh, hi," he let out breathlessly, "Sorry, I got - I lost track of time."</p>
<p>"Reading again?" Jon asked him, and Martin nodded with an apologetic smile.</p>
<p>"I hope you didn't have to wait for long."</p>
<p>Jon shook his head.<br/>"Maybe I should have told you your shift was over," he said then, "though knowing that you weren't working in the first place makes me rather glad I didn't."</p>
<p>Martin laughed.<br/>"Alright, I've got the message. Where do you want to go?"</p>
<p>"I don't really go places."</p>
<p>"Well, that's comforting to know. Neither do I. I don't really know any good places around here, which is funny, I guess, since I spend so much time in the library."</p>
<p>Jon examined the thoughtful look on Martin's face for a moment before a sigh broke through and he hid his hands in his pockets.<br/>"Guess we'll just have to look around, then. Take a walk."</p>
<p>"Not the best weather," Martin said, his voice once more apologetic, "I'm sorry, I should have picked a better day."</p>
<p>"It's quite alright, Martin."</p>
<p>"If you say so."</p>
<p>"Besides, this is London. It's raining every other day. If you'd have waited..."</p>
<p>"... then we'd never be going. I know."</p>
<p>They exchanged a smile, and with that, Jon nodded towards the street and they started walking. Martin reached into his bag and brought it forwards, lifting the flap to show an umbrella.</p>
<p>"Do you have one?"</p>
<p>Jon shook his head.<br/>"I was hoping it wouldn't rain again," he confessed.</p>
<p>"You just said yourself that this is London, and it always rains," Martin pointed out. "Anyway, we can share mine if - well, if you're alright with that."</p>
<p>Jon nodded.<br/>"If it comes to that."</p>
<p>Martin nodded too.<br/>"Let's hope it doesn't. I like the rain sometimes, just not when I'm outside walking in it."</p>
<p>They kept walking, and the drizzle kept coming, and Jon had a hard time thinking of an answer to what Martin had said. He could have offered some idle nonsense about his preference in weather, but he wasn't entirely sure what his preference was, and even if he had, any sentence that he would form in his head just sounded dull and worthless, so instead of speaking he kept leading them on towards an unknown destination.</p>
<p>"Hopefully we'll find something not too far away," Martin said to kill the silence. "Not that I don't like... walking, it's nice and all, but..."</p>
<p>"The rain."</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>Another silence.</p>
<p>"I walked all the way home yesterday," Jon said then, the words just bursting through the longer the silence lasted, like a last resort at finding something to say.</p>
<p>"What? In that storm?"</p>
<p>"Well, it wasn't exactly a storm when I left work. But... yes."</p>
<p>Martin blinked at him.<br/>"Are you - I mean - why?"</p>
<p>Jon shrugged.<br/>"Didn't feel like taking the underground."</p>
<p>"So you walked? How far do you live, anyway?"</p>
<p>"Quite."</p>
<p>"You must have been freezing."</p>
<p>"It wasn't my smartest decision."</p>
<p>"No, I wouldn't think so."</p>
<p>Jon suppressed a smile. He looked at Martin who seemed at first utterly baffled at what he'd just confessed to, but the remnants of amusement on Jon's features caught up to him and he chuckled in defeat.</p>
<p>"You're crazy," Martin said.</p>
<p>Jon nodded.<br/>"I thought so about halfway through, too. Well - maybe I already did before I started walking. I think I knew that already."</p>
<p>For a moment, Martin returned to their previous silence, now sharing Jon's burden of continuing the conversation - yet he didn't seem to be struggling for words, but rather to choose from the ones already on his tongue. Jon watched him swallow some of them and felt another rush of warmth in his body, and his heart leapt, forcing him to look away before his staring became too obvious. He did want to watch Martin, though. He really wanted to just... look, observe, and he wanted to do so without staring, he wanted to just <em>know</em> him and be aware of him and have his presence there with all his senses, and it was an overwhelming urge that he didn't know how to react to.</p>
<p>"It still makes me a little nervous," Martin said then.</p>
<p>"What does?"</p>
<p>"Getting wet in the rain."<br/>He chuckled.<br/>"I used to get in trouble for it as a boy. If I'd play in the rain or - or stayed out too long in it. I guess it lingers."</p>
<p>"I don't think my grandmother cared too much," Jon recalled, "She'd tell me to change and that was that, if she'd notice."</p>
<p>"Did you play out a lot as a boy?"</p>
<p>Jon shook his head.<br/>"I preferred reading, really. I'd do it outside sometimes but - I was never the kind of a child to spend a lot of time outside the house."</p>
<p>"Yeah."</p>
<p>"And it's not very smart to read out in the rain," Jon continued, "so I suppose the answer to your question is no."</p>
<p>"I liked gathering frogs," Martin told him, "I'd get all muddy in the process but there was something satisfying about it."</p>
<p>"What did you do with them?"</p>
<p>"I don't really remember. I think I just let them go after a while. It was finding them that was exciting to me, and holding them at first. There's not much you can do with a frog, though, so I think I just put them back and went looking for another one."</p>
<p>Jon nodded.<br/>"I don't remember chasing frogs."</p>
<p>"I thought all boys did."</p>
<p>"Maybe I wasn't much like all the other boys."</p>
<p>"I guess I wasn't, either," Martin said, his voice hinting at regret at the note. "And I wasn't really good with others, so I wouldn't really know what they were doing. Did you have a lot of friends?"</p>
<p>"A kid who stayed indoors reading books all day long? Hardly."</p>
<p>"Were you lonely?"</p>
<p>"Not really. I never craved for company like that."</p>
<p>Martin nodded.<br/>"I wish I'd been like that. Not that I'm complaining, I - I had an alright childhood, I think. I've just never been good with other people."<br/>He chuckled, and Jon glanced at him to see his expression; he had a good impression of carefreeness on him, but Jon wasn't convinced. Then he turned his gaze to Jon and Jon felt like he'd been caught staring, but Martin didn't seem to mind. Instead, he offered him a small smile.<br/>"Thanks for taking a walk with me, Jon."</p>
<p>"We've hardly started yet."</p>
<p>"Are you threatening to leave?"</p>
<p>"What? No."</p>
<p>Martin chuckled.<br/>"Then, as I said: thank you. I'm not very good at making friends, but you probably caught onto that already."</p>
<p>"Why me, Martin?"</p>
<p>"Well, we - talk, sometimes. And I do really like you, you know. Is that too much to say to someone you're hanging out with for the first time?"</p>
<p>"No, I don't - I don't think so. Thank you, Martin, I... don't really know why you'd enjoy my company, but I'm glad that you do."</p>
<p>"I don't want to come across weird, Jon, I just, I've got this feeling that - that I should try a bit harder with you. So I wanted to ask you o-... I wanted to ask if you'd -"</p>
<p>"You can say 'out', Martin, I won't get the wrong impression."<br/>Jon already had the wrong impression.</p>
<p>Martin sighed.<br/>"I don't want to freak you out."</p>
<p>"You're not 'freaking me out'."</p>
<p>"Good. I mean, that's - good. Hey..."</p>
<p>Jon lifted his head; he'd been staring at his feet and the way his shoes reflected from the wet concrete below.<br/>"Mm?"</p>
<p>"How about this one? It looks nice," Martin said and gestured towards a small café tucked between an Irish pub and a second-hand store.</p>
<p>It looked cozy enough. It wasn't part of any chain that Jon would have recognised, and it looked a little cramped in space and like it could have used some renovations, but overall the atmosphere he could peer at through the windows appeared cozy and homely, and the fact that there were few people inside made it all the more appealing to him. He nodded, then barely caught himself in time from taking Martin's hand to cross the street. <em>Slow down</em>, he told himself. Maybe they really were here just for a friendly chat. He'd caught the gesture so late that his knuckles had already brushed against Martin's hand, however, and he could see how he stilled in response to the touch and that familiar redness returned to his cheeks. Jon tried to pass it off as an accidental touch that he'd barely noticed himself and acted just as ignorant towards the reaction it had caused, but inside, he couldn't stop himself from feeling... what was that? Happiness, hope?</p>
<p>A car slowed down to let them pass, and they crossed the street in some hurry, perhaps in wait of another car to speed at them or because the weather was turning again, but whatever it was they'd tried to avoid never caught up with them, and they entered the café mostly dry if still a little chilly from the wind and drizzle.</p>
<p>"I can order for you if you want to sit down," Jon offered.</p>
<p>"Any specific seat you'd like?" Martin asked, and Jon looked around the small interior of the building they'd entered, then shrugged.</p>
<p>"Do you think 'private, but next to a window' is getting <em>too</em> specific?" he asked in return.</p>
<p>Martin chuckled.<br/>"No. I think I can arrange that. Jon, could you - well, you know me. Get me some tea, please, I'll pay you back whatever it is."</p>
<p>"Anything to eat?"</p>
<p>"Well... maybe - I don't know. Your choice."</p>
<p>Jon nodded.<br/>"I'll bring you something."</p>
<p>And he did. The tray swayed a little as he walked to the corner table Martin had chosen, with two of the four seats already taken by the man himself and his messenger bag sitting beside him. That left Jon the choice of the seat opposite him or next to his bag, and he chose the former, sliding the tray between them and letting his body collapse into the seat. It was so warm here, and the small space offered him the perfect opportunity to observe his surroundings unhindered; it offered him some comfort that no one and nothing could enter or exit without him seeing them do so first. It tickled the paranoia within him, but he'd already submitted to it, hadn't he? Submission felt so much better than fighting it and pretending that he wasn't constantly on edge.</p>
<p>"I hope you don't hate a good old BLT," he said and spun the tray around to offer Martin his black tea and sandwich.</p>
<p>"No, I really don't. Thanks. How much do I owe you...?"</p>
<p>"Maybe later."</p>
<p>Martin nodded. He picked up his sandwich and unwrapped it, and Jon did the same with his own. For a while all they did was eat in silence and gaze out of the window, where the rain was picking up again.</p>
<p>"So..." Jon started then, his hands now firmly wrapped around his cup of black coffee, "You've been fine?"</p>
<p>"Oh - yes. Just fine. And you?"</p>
<p>"Just fine."</p>
<p>It was a lie, of course; no matter which angle Jon was looking at his circumstances from, "fine" was no way to describe them. A part of him wanted to tell that to Martin, but he was still certain that if he'd tell anyone at all, he'd just be instructed to go to the doctor and looked at like he was mad, and hell, maybe he was. It didn't have to be somatic; a breakdown or a psychotic episode would explain both his absence from work and his problems with his memory. It didn't sound like a good topic for a conversation, however, so he added that to the list of reasons he really shouldn't bring attention to it, and with that, he buried the urge.</p>
<p>"You know... I'm really hopeless at making friends, too," he said instead.</p>
<p>Martin laughed.<br/>"We do really suck at this, don't we?"</p>
<p>Jon nodded.<br/>"But you're right," he said then, "I do consider you a friend. Is that strange? We barely talk. We've never really talked outside of work... have we?"</p>
<p>Martin licked his lips and cast his gaze out of the window. He remained there, looking out into the rain for a good moment before shrugging.<br/>"I don't think so."</p>
<p>And yet it felt wrong - like it wasn't true, but Jon couldn't remember when or where he would have spent more time with Martin than he was doing now. He didn't really know anything about the man, just that he <em>liked</em> him, and he felt good in his company. Wherever all that trust had come from, he couldn't tell.</p>
<p>"It was quiet at work without you, though," Martin said then, looking back at him. "I guess that's why I wanted to meet up after work today. I kind of, I did miss you, you know? I sent you a message while you were gone but you didn't answer, and to be honest I wasn't sure if you'd come back to work at all, so that was scary."</p>
<p>"It'll take a bit more to kill me than a common cold, Martin," Jon noted.</p>
<p>"Yeah, but - I didn't really know if that's what was up, you know? It's not like you told <em>us</em> where you went. You just weren't there. So - I thought maybe you'd quit and... I felt, you know, I felt like I'd maybe missed an opportunity to talk to you more, and since you didn't answer my message, I figured that maybe you didn't want to connect outside of work. But then the message bounced back. I guess I have your number wrong? I don't know. It's worked before, I think."</p>
<p>Jon lowered his hand to his pocket and pulled out his phone. He laid it on the table and took some time to navigate himself to his received messages, but the folder was empty.</p>
<p>"I haven't gotten any messages," he confirmed, looking back up at Martin. "Try sending me one?"</p>
<p>"Oh, okay. Sure. Just - just a moment," Martin said and started digging around his bag for his phone in turn. Then he typed up something, and the café was quiet for a while until another customer entered it: a young woman with one of those auras that made Jon wish for an excuse to get up and just <em>talk </em>to her. He lowered his gaze and tried to ignore her existence until Martin laid his phone down and brought him back to the present moment.</p>
<p>"Did it work?" Martin asked, and Jon picked up his phone again.</p>
<p>The woman was ordering a cappucino with a croissant, and Jon wasn't quite sure if he'd <em>heard</em> her order or if he was just taking a guess at it. Whichever it was, he wanted to not care. The phone in his hand remained dark until he tapped the screen twice to bring up his messages folder again - it was still empty.</p>
<p>"Nothing yet," he said with a half of a shrug.<br/>Then it vibrated in his hand.</p>
<p>"Well?"</p>
<p>The message came from a saved contact - Martin, no surname - and the preview read: "Hey, Jon."</p>
<p>Jon nodded absently as he poked the message open to reply to it, but it had more content now.<br/><em><b><br/>Martin: </b>Hey, Jon. I wanted to ask you discreetly and I guess this is a good way, just ignore the question if the answer is no and we'll pretend it never happened, alright? I really do want to be your friend, but I need you to know that I also really, </em><em>really </em>like<em> you and if this changes things between us, could you tell me in a message back?</em></p>
<p>He drew in a breath and felt his hands shaking when he tapped the screen again.</p>
<p>
  <em><b>Jon: </b>Are you the type of a person to break up with your partner over a text, too, Martin?</em>
</p>
<p>Then he picked up his cup of coffee and drank half of it in a single gulp, and he wasn't entirely sure if he wasn't hoping it had turned into liquor while he wasn't watching. It hadn't. Martin shifted, but Jon wasn't looking at him, and although he was still entirely too aware of the woman moving to a table on the opposite side of the café, he was suddenly much too preoccupied with his phone to really pay attention to her.</p>
<p>His phone vibrated again.</p>
<p>
  <em><b>Martin: </b>What? No! No, I'd never do that, I promise. It's just hard for me to put things into words sometimes when I'm speaking. I guess I'm scared you'll laugh at me or something. You can't laugh over a text message, but considering you're sitting opposite to me, I think I fucked that up.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em><b>Jon: </b>I wouldn't laugh at you. I'm not laughing at you. I guess you already knew that.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em><b>Martin: </b>Can you just answer me, please? The suspense is actually killing me right now.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em><b>Jon: </b>I think you deserve it.</em>
</p>
<p>Jon lifted his gaze from his phone and then draggingly held his cup back to his mouth and drank from it, his eyes fixed upon Martin who had the most pleading expression on his features, although Jon could perceive the dawning hope behind that look - it seemed to light Martin up from within and as Jon watched him, his breath hitched and came out as a shivering gasp.</p>
<p>"Tell me, was all that about my number not working just an elaborate trick to get me into this conversation?" Jon asked him.</p>
<p>Martin shook his head.<br/>"No. I swear. I was - actually really hoping the message wouldn't come through. I don't think I meant for it to do that. Well... now you know. Can you <em>please</em> answer me already?"</p>
<p>"You told me to ignore the question if -"</p>
<p>"Oh, come on. You can't do this."</p>
<p>Jon chuckled. He shook his head and placed his cup back on the table. Then he reached his hand, warmed by the coffee he'd held so firmly a second earlier, across the table and stroked the back of Martin's hand with the tip of his index finger, hoping he'd lean into the touch, and he did; Martin rested his hand towards Jon's, the backs of their palms now touching each other.</p>
<p>"I'm not ignoring your question," Jon promised then.</p>
<p>Martin drew in a long breath and then held it inside for a moment. When it came out, it was more in the form of a puff than words.<br/>"You can't be serious."</p>
<p>"No, I'm dead serious. I - don't know how to answer it. What do you want me to say? I feel the same way. I was... afraid that you didn't. I'm really bad at this, Martin. Please."</p>
<p>Martin swallowed hard to suffocate whatever expression had tried its hardest to get on his face, and instead he remained still and his expression slightly nervous, and Jon could tell that there was a lot happening behind that mask but for a while, he got no further insight into what exactly that was. Then Martin moved his hand and gripped Jon's like a man about to fall to his death, and he moved over the table and kissed him on the lips. Jon let out a small sound into it out of sheer surprise but he didn't back out, and although for a moment he was much too aware of his surroundings and every pair of eyes that might have been watching he returned the kiss and the deathgrip Martin had of his hand. The white noise of the rain turned into a static in his ears before they broke apart and he landed back in his chair with his full weight, and yet the world was going on as usual: nothing had changed, and no one was looking at them. The woman across the café had pulled out a laptop and appeared to have completely withdrawn into her own project, and the barista was cleaning her equipment behind the counter, and the traffic outside was still moving and there was a man shaking his umbrella across the street with a dog tugging at its leash beside him. Jon, in turn, felt breathless and shaky even with his full body resting against his chair, and for once he was glad that this conversation had been had indoors and seated, because he wasn't quite sure his knees would have handled it standing up.</p>
<p>"Too much?" Martin asked; he was still leaning in, not entirely back to his own side yet.</p>
<p>Jon shook his head.<br/>"Just... a lot at once," he said, and his voice was breathy and quiet.</p>
<p>"I hope you didn't mind."</p>
<p>"Did it feel like I minded?"</p>
<p>"No," Martin admitted, "but you can't always tell. I should have asked first. I just - I lost my words again. I'm not very good at this."</p>
<p>"I could have stopped you," Jon noted, "I could have moved back. I know you wouldn't have - I know you were paying attention."</p>
<p>"I was. But... still. That was a bit... rash."</p>
<p>"Oh, it was rash. It doesn't mean it was... bad."</p>
<p>"Still, I'm sorry. I'll ask you next time."</p>
<p>"Just move in a little slower, that should be enough."</p>
<p>Martin chuckled quietly. He sighed as he leaned back down into his seat and pulled his tea closer.</p>
<p>"You taste like coffee," he pointed out.</p>
<p>"You taste like Earl Grey with a hint of bacon and tomato," Jon returned with a crooked smile.</p>
<p>"Do you think they saw that?" Martin asked, nodding towards the scarcely populated café around them.</p>
<p>Jon shook his head again.<br/>"No. I think we've... slipped under the radar for now."</p>
<p>Martin chuckled again, but this time his voice was a little more confident. He seemed relieved, and Jon could practically see his tension fading and his shoulders relaxing; Martin reached his hand over his arm and rubbed it lightly, perhaps trying to shake some of that electric tingling that still remained in Jon's body too.</p>
<p>"Anyway," he said then rather suddenly, "What do you like to do on your free time? <em>Really</em> this time, none of that 'nothing' nonsense you gave me earlier."</p>
<p>Jon sighed. He had better make himself sound interesting now.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Worth a mention</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p><br/>
When the rain quieted down again, and finally indeed stopped altogether, they made their way out of the café and back onto the streets of London. It was dark now, with only the city lighting up the night around them, but with the weather changing more people were around and the streets felt more alive again. With people came that incessant feeling of being watched that haunted Jon everywhere, but he did his best to ignore it; Martin didn't seem to care about it, care about the way people sometimes turned to look over their shoulders as they passed them, followed with their eyes down their arms to their joined hands and entwined fingers, but maybe he was just doing his best not to show how he really felt about it. It was a convincing act, but... Jon wished he could have known, yet he didn't want to bring Martin's attention to it, make him focus on it. He felt more exposed again, but this time it wasn't because of the way people were looking at <em>him</em>, it was because of the way they were looking at <em>them</em> - he felt more concern for Martin than himself, and there was a distinct desire, almost an instinct, to protect him from the thoughts and the threat of hostility from the people around them. It felt better this way, however. Fearing for Martin was better than fearing for nothing but still fearing all the same. That dread had never left Jon, and he was getting used to it lurking just beneath the surface at all times, but he'd never truly felt any fear for himself, and now that he could focus that fear on something, he had a chance to build a defence. He could defend Martin, fight for him, as Martin was something physical, something real that he was now holding onto, and although they had to barely know each other he felt like they'd been this way for forever - he felt like he knew Martin, somewhere beyond that fog which followed him everywhere, maybe better than he thought he knew himself.</p><p>Martin's hand didn't feel new in Jon's.<br/>
His warmth didn't come as something he'd never felt before.</p><p>Instead, these sensations - the softness of his hands and fingers against Jon's, the texture of the fine hair over his knuckles, and even the wrinkles of his palms - felt familiar and reassuring like they should have been there all along. This was something Jon wanted to ask Martin about even more than he wanted to know if he could feel the strangers staring, but he didn't have the words for it, not here and not now. He wanted to be somewhere quiet for it, somewhere more private than the café had been, and somewhere much more so than the street they were in now. This wasn't a place to ask about past lives and incarnations, about the ghosts of touches from someplace else entirely. This was the last stretch of a road to the library bus stop, from where Jon would board his and Martin would go... wherever Martin would go from there.</p><p>The thought of leaving him alone in the night stung Jon, but Martin was a grown man - he didn't need a babysitter.</p><p>"I guess... this is it, then," he said when they stopped under the shelter of the stop.</p><p>Martin's hold of his hand tightened.<br/>
"Will you make it alright?" he asked, and Jon couldn't help but let out a quiet laugh at the question.</p><p>"You know, I was thinking the same thing about you," he confessed.</p><p>"I'm not the one who walked home in a downpour with no umbrella yesterday," Martin pointed out.<br/>
He still wasn't letting go.</p><p>"I promise to stay in the bus until my stop, Martin. What could go wrong?"</p><p>Martin sighed and shook his head. His grip tightened again, and he spun around to face Jon, their hands still connected.<br/>
"Promise not to look at me like I've gone mad?" he asked, and Jon raised his brows in question.</p><p>"Alright," he answered simply. "I'm listening."</p><p>"Well, I - rather feel like a lot of things could go wrong, actually. I don't know why, but I have this feeling, and - I'd feel a lot better if I could... you know, ride with you?"</p><p>"And what about you? I'm just supposed to let you find your own way back home afterwards?"</p><p>"I could just get a cab, you know," Martin pointed out. "It won't be too much."</p><p>"Only if you let me pay for it."</p><p>"Jon, you already paid for the meal, I couldn't ask -"</p><p>"You're not asking. I'm <em>insisting.</em>"</p><p>Martin sighed.<br/>
"Fine," he said then, stepping back. Their hands finally parted. "Alright. Have it your way."</p><p>He stepped back to Jon's side and they stood there together, watching the cars pass them by.</p><p>"Thanks, by the way."</p><p>Jon turned to look at him.<br/>
"Thanks for what?"</p><p>"For not telling me I'm crazy. I know that sounded mad and all, but I just... I don't want to go yet. It doesn't feel right."<br/>
Martin returned his gaze and tried on a smile, which Jon reciprocated, although his was as strained as Martin's was apologetic.</p><p>"I don't think you're crazy."<br/>
He was going to say more, but it was then that he spotted the bus coming down the road; he nudged Martin on the wrist, and he nodded. They found seats together with Martin by the window: he dug out a pair of headphones from his bag and gave Jon a questioning look, to which he answered with a smile and a turn of his head away from Martin. He could do with a silent trip - it didn't bother him if the other man wanted the same. This bus, like the café and the street before it, wasn't the place for the kinds of questions Jon wanted to ask him, or the kinds of conversations he was burning for. There were too many eyes and ears on them here, and the lights inside were too bright. The truth was, too, that he was growing tired. Even though the day had been... well, it had been different in a way that he found himself beyond grateful for, it had still been a long one and weariness was starting to grow in his body and mind the longer the bus drove onwards along the roads, its ambient noise lulling Jon into something of a waking dream. He barely heard the other passengers, and although their presence scorched his skin somehow he was by now almost used to it: as long as Martin was sitting firmly next to him, his headphones letting through just the bare bones of whatever music he was listening to, Jon felt comfortable enough to let it all simply exist around him.</p><p>When they finally stepped back onto the street almost directly underneath Jon's window, the air felt crisp and cold and the moisture still lingering in the air after the rain made it only ever more uncomfortable against bare skin. Jon hid his hands in his pockets again and found himself shivering. Autumn wasn't far yet, but it was certainly there, and whatever pleasantness remained over from the summer weather only reached daytime and had no teeth against the growing cold of the night. Martin shivered just the same.</p><p>"So, where do we...?" Martin started, but Jon simply cocked his head over his shoulder and towards the entrance to the building behind them.</p><p>"Here," he said with a shrug, "This is it."</p><p>"Nice street," Martin commented, and Jon looked around himself examining the area from an outside perspective.</p><p>"I... think so, yes," he replied slowly before turning his gaze back to Martin. "Martin, would you..."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Would you like to come inside?"</p><p>Martin's lips parted, but no sound came out. Then he blushed.<br/>
"Oh, I... I don't know, Jon, it's - a little early for that, don't you think?"</p><p>Jon's mouth opened just the same, but instead of words he just produced something of a strange sound - a hoarse noise stuck between an "ah" and a cough.<br/>
"No, no, I - Martin, I didn't mean <em>that</em>, I... God, I'm sorry. That's not what I meant at all. You're right, it would be too early, and - this really isn’t the place. For any of this."<br/>
He had to gather himself again before returning to his attempt at producing an intelligible sentence.<br/>
"What I meant was: would you like to come inside to warm up before we call you a cab? There's still some things I'd like to talk about if you don't mind, but it can wait if you'd rather go home now."</p><p>"Oh."<br/>
Martin drew a breath and it escaped him as a relieved little laugh.<br/>
"Oh, alright, then. I don't mind. I think I'd actually like that a lot."</p><p>Jon chuckled, some tension shedding from him with the sound.<br/>
"Sorry."</p><p>"No, don't be - I just..."</p><p>"I know. We just went out and now I'm asking you... it's... it's quite alright, I understand why you thought..."</p><p>"Yeah. No, I... shouldn't have."</p><p>"It doesn't matter. Really, it was just bad phrasing."</p><p>They stood there for a moment, perhaps trying to come up with another apology for the misunderstanding before Jon finally made the move to head to the door; he unlocked it and they climbed up the stairs to his flat, which greeted them dark and only illuminated by the outside lights peeking in through the wide windows of the living room ahead. Jon flipped on the light switch and they were bathed in its golden glow, which after the dark of the corridor and the outside street appeared much brighter than it would a few moments into the future. Martin squinted as he made his way in, and Jon huffed warmly at him.</p><p>"Tea? Something more to eat?" he asked, pretending like he felt perfectly at home here and knew exactly what he had in his kitchen.</p><p>He didn't, not really, but Martin didn't need to know that just yet.</p><p>"I'm fine, thanks," Martin told him.</p><p>He seemed curious in a held-back manner and took some time wandering about the corridor and the living room, finally making his way into the kitchen. Jon humoured him and stayed out of the way, although his investigations made him almost as interested in his own flat as Martin seemed to be. It did feel like a home, but not like one that he'd built for himself - rather, it felt like something that had been modeled for him, with its bookcases and objects of interest scattered about, each of which seemed to fit his interests but which he did not recall owning or ever buying.</p><p>Finally the wandering ceased, and Martin leaned his back to the kitchen table. He fit the kitchen well, Jon thought; he brought with him the presence and the aura that the home lacked, made it feel warmer and more alive. He would have brought any room to life like that, but Jon could almost see him bent over that table, scribbling something on a notebook... his head was beginning to hurt.</p><p>"You said you wanted to talk about something, or did I misunderstand?" Martin asked.</p><p>"No," Jon said and found himself a solid surface to lean to in turn. "There's... a few things, actually."</p><p>"Alright, then. Let's get to it."</p><p>He nodded.<br/>
"I don't know what to start with. I don't want to scare you off."<br/>
<em>Not when I just got you here. Not when everything feels so... right.</em></p><p>"I don't scare easily, Jon," Martin promised, "You probably wouldn't think that, though. I probably don't look the part, but I really can't imagine many things you could say that would do that."</p><p>"Maybe I'm about to tell you of all the people I've buried under my floorboards."</p><p>"Am I about to become one of them?"</p><p>”I don’t think you were supposed to go along with that joke,” Jon stated dryly.</p><p>Martin shook his head.<br/>
"Tell me," he urged him then, causing Jon to sigh.</p><p>”Fine. You wanted me to promise I wouldn’t look at you like you’d gone mad. Can you promise the same to me?”</p><p>”Of course, Jon.”</p><p>Jon crossed his arms over his chest again and let his spine curve forwards until he was staring down at the floor with his feet a good distance away from the counter he was leaning to, and he kicked at invisible dust until he felt the silence had reached too far. Only then did he straighten back up, but he had some difficulty returning his gaze to Martin even after giving himself all that time to prepare for this.</p><p>”I suppose I should start with the least crazy part, and - the part that is arguably most immediately relevant to you.”</p><p>”Alright.”</p><p>”It’s - I didn’t mean to drop this bombshell on you like this, I usually at least give people some time to get used to, well, <em>me</em>, but I think that... I should make something clear after our little misunderstanding downstairs.”</p><p>”Oh, God, Jon, I was just starting to get over it,” Martin sighed, but although he did seem embarrassed, his smile was genuine.</p><p>”I understand if this is a dealbreaker for you,” Jon continued, his voice emptier now, like he was giving out some kind of a statement or reading from a pamphlet instead of speaking for himself. ”It wouldn’t be the first time, and I won’t judge you for walking out now if that’s what you choose.”</p><p>”Is this the part where you tell me you really do have bodies buried under your floorboards, or...?”</p><p>It got a small chuckle out of Jon, who shook his head.</p><p>”No. I just need to tell you that - if whatever this is, if we keep it going, sex isn’t going to be a part of it.”</p><p>Martin’s brows jumped and he readjusted, crossing his arms over his chest in a mirror image to Jon who stood some feet ahead of him towards the doorway.</p><p>”Oh,” he said then, his voice a little surprised, ”Alright - is that - can I ask... why? Not that I’m - like I said it’s too early, but... you mean, never?”</p><p>Jon tilted his head and turned his gaze away.</p><p>”Never,” he repeated, ”because I don’t want it to be. It isn’t anything to do with you, Martin, you’re - attractive - but I don’t want you or anyone that way. Never have, and I don’t think I ever will.”</p><p>”Alright,” Martin repeated in a voice that told Jon he wasn’t even halfway done processing the information yet. ”Okay, so... I guess that’s... good? That it isn’t just about me, I mean, not - I mean, it’s not a bad thing, either, is it? God, I’m so bad at this.”</p><p>He took a long breath and let it out slowly, his eyes closed. When he opened them again, he had a sharper look in them, and he aimed it at Jon.</p><p>”What do you want from me?” he asked then.</p><p>Jon shrugged gently.</p><p>”Companionship?” he offered. ”I <em>do</em> have feelings for you, Martin, and if I needed proof then I got more than enough tonight. I enjoyed our night out, but if this is as far as you want to go with me, I understand. I thought you should know, especially after - well - I didn’t mean to lead you on. I’m sorry if I did.”</p><p>Martin shook his head.</p><p>”No, Jon, you didn’t. I - I think I understand. I’ll need some time to process that, but... I think it will be alright. I’m not a very sexual person myself, I’d rather focus on the other things, and - I just, I guess I wanted to hear that it wasn’t... because of me?”</p><p>Jon answered his gaze, this time rather firmly, and shook his head in turn.</p><p>”This isn’t about you,” he promised. ”It’s just the way I’ve always been. I don’t want it to come as a nasty surprise later.”</p><p>”Thank you for telling me.”</p><p>Jon nodded and turned his eyes away again.</p><p>”Did you... have something else to talk about?” Martin asked then, coaxing him back into talking.</p><p>”Yes,” Jon replied slowly, ”I did. This is - this is where I might start to sound crazy to you.”</p><p>”Alright, I’m ready.”</p><p>”I need you to promise me that you won’t... I haven’t lost my mind. I need you to keep that in mind. I’m fine, Martin. I’m fine.”</p><p>”Uh, alright.”</p><p>Their eyes met, and Jon watched the manner in which Martin’s right brow lifted slowly upwards the longer the silence stretched. There was no way this was going to sound anything but mad, but he had to ask.</p><p>”You told me earlier you just had a bad feeling about letting me leave alone,” he started, and Martin nodded along.</p><p>”I did. Because I did. It just didn’t feel <em>right</em>.”</p><p>”Is it... better now? Do you think you can leave me alone here?” Jon asked.</p><p>Martin nodded again.</p><p>”I don’t feel that way anymore. I didn’t feel like - it wasn’t like a premonition or anything, I just felt like I needed to make sure you made it home alright. I don’t know why, exactly. I just really didn’t like the alternative.”</p><p>”Would you believe me if I told you that I - I’m not exactly sure what I did last week when I was gone?” Jon asked then. Better to get straight into it - to get it out of the way. At least he was finally telling someone, even if Martin wasn’t exactly the optimal target to share this information with. Still, something about the way he’d spoken earlier had made Jon feel that perhaps he would understand after all: perhaps there was something they shared together, some strangeness or a feeling or an offness about them that would help to explain what was going on with him.</p><p>In response, Martin went pale. He breathed out and let his arms loosen over his chest, and his eyes were a little wider than before.</p><p>”What do you mean?” he asked, and that same shock persisted in his voice even though he had it well under control.</p><p>”I woke up yesterday and for a moment I didn’t know where I was,” Jon explained, ”I expected it to go away in an hour or two but I don’t know much more today than I did yesterday. It feels like I never really <em>existed</em> before yesterday. It feels like - all these memories I have are from somewhere else, and all the parts that I would recognise about them have been cut away, like faces from a photograph.”</p><p>Martin swallowed.</p><p>”You’re going to call me an ambulance,” Jon sighed.</p><p>”No,” Martin said quickly, ”No, I’m not thinking - I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to come out with it, alright? Don’t, like, freak out or anything.”</p><p>”Alright.”</p><p>”That happened to me a week ago,” Martin told him, ”God, I thought - I thought something was wrong with me. I’ve kept it to myself this whole time thinking that I’ll be fine if I can just, you know, navigate my life until I remember everything again and I have, I have remembered bits and pieces, but... it’s like I wasn’t here before last Monday. And the text I sent you? I - Jon, I don’t know.”</p><p>”What was in that message?”</p><p>Martin sighed.</p><p>”Nothing important,” he said then, ”I just - I asked you how you were feeling, and if you were coming back to work soon. I know it sounds strange, but - I wasn’t - Jon, I wasn’t even sure <em>you</em> existed.”</p><p>”And now I’m here questioning whether I did,” Jon finished for him, and he nodded.</p><p>”Yeah,” Martin said, ”It doesn’t really sound good for you, does it. Or me, really. Not knowing if my coworkers are real, and... not knowing if... if I’m real. And I didn’t have anyone else to ask, really... I’m not really close with anyone.”</p><p>”But you thought you were close with me? Close enough to connect with me over anybody else.”</p><p>Martin looked down, his head hanging low.</p><p>”I think I just love you, Jon. I wanted - no, I <em>needed</em> you to be real, at least.”</p><p>”That’s a lot to say to someone you just went out with for the first time,” Jon pointed out even though his chest was aching and his skin was prickling with an emotion that he couldn’t let through, not right there and then.</p><p>”But it doesn’t really feel like that, does it?” Martin asked him, and suddenly he was looking him in the eye with a sense of determination about him, or was it desperation? Jon couldn’t tell.</p><p>He shook his head.</p><p>”No. It doesn’t feel like this is the first time.”</p><p>Martin relaxed. He dropped his arms from around his body and took the few steps keeping him away from Jon, and instinctively Jon dropped his own defensive posture and opened his arms for him to fall into. Martin pressed into him and breathed him in and he held him tight in return, his eyes closing at the familiar feel of the man beside him. Jon buried his face into Martin's hair and let himself linger in his scent for some time in peace, mind empty of all the confusion and renewed dread the conversation had stirred up.</p><p>”I don’t think this is right,” Martin mumbled into his chest, and his fists grew tight around Jon’s shirt.</p><p>In return, Jon held him a little bit tighter still.</p><p>”At least we’re not alone with it. Not anymore,” he returned in a quiet voice, and Martin nodded.</p><p>Jon let his hand travel up Martin’s spine and rested it over the back of his neck instead, his fingers trailing his hair and his face still close to his scent, and he opened his eyes slowly to look around his kitchen that looked like his kitchen but wasn’t, not really. His eyes hit the tape recorder on the table and something stirred in him but he couldn’t quite get a hold of it no matter how hard he tried, and trying... trying made him feel even more exhausted than before, like he was climbing a straight wall up, up towards an unseen peak somewhere so far away he was certain he’d never reach high enough to touch it.</p><p>”Would you like to stay the night?” he asked.</p><p>Martin nodded.</p><p>”I don’t want to go right now,” he said in a strangely calm tone of voice unfitting the sheer chaos that dwelled inside Jon even as Martin replied. ”I’d like to stay, Jon.”</p><p>Jon nodded in turn.</p><p>”I don’t want you to go, either.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The bedframe had warmed behind Jon’s back. He had his knees up to his chest and his chin over them, and his hands were resting crossed over his ankles, and out there somewhere was the city just before dawn, a darkness that was zebra-striped with the streetlamps and the windows coming to life one by one. He could see these things through the gap in the curtains, and what he felt was Martin’s warmth against his hip from the other side of the bed. He wanted to talk about it - desperately - but he’d hesitated picking up the recorder for almost twenty minutes now in the fear of stirring the man if he’d start talking into it. The urge was growing stronger by the moment, however; he felt like his head was growing crowded, packed with thoughts, and the more they pressed him the less clearly he could navigate them. It felt like he needed to let them out to hear himself through them again, to focus on the now instead of the fog that was rising and rising within him. It was almost like being drunk or drugged, like a poison was seeping into his veins and travelling them instead of oxygen, depriving his cells of fuel.</p><p>Finally, he couldn’t resist it anymore.</p><p>”Four-thirty in the morning. I... don’t know where to start. How do you tell a story from the middle back to its beginning? How do you wrap it all together when you don’t know how it will end? I slept two hours before this <em>craving</em> woke me up, this - this need for something that I can’t name. Before then... I’ve never been happier, I think. I held Martin in my arms, and he fell asleep there, his breath on my neck and his arm around my waist and the other hand touching my chin. I listened to him breathe until I fell asleep too, and it was easy, I think easier than ever before. I can’t see beyond this wall of everything I’ve forgotten but I feel that whatever was before, this is the most relief I’ve felt in a long time... the most happiness and content I’ve been rewarded for a long time. It makes me so... vulnerable; I want to think that what comes next can’t be that bad, not when I have him by my side. I want to hold him like this forever. I want to believe that once I’ve fed this nagging need to speak my thoughts out loud I’ll go back to sleep and I’ll hold him again and we’ll wake up together tomorrow. I’ve thought about the morning... I tried not to, but I can’t stop imagining the way he’ll feel when I’ll kiss him again. I want to feel the scruff on his cheeks, I want to hold his hand again, and I can’t wait to see him smile. I love him. I really love him.</p><p>And... that’s why I’m afraid again. It isn’t the same fear that I feel at everything else, the kind I’m growing numb to, no, it's something else this time. This - life I lived before I was here, it haunts me. I can almost touch the memories when I’m with him. Everything about him reminds me of how he was before but I can’t hold onto those thoughts and flashes of what we used to have together. I remember when I woke up here for the first time, in this place that pretends to be my home... how lonely it all felt, and how I knew that something was missing. I know what was missing now. Was I supposed to return him here? Did I do the right thing?</p><p>Of course, I didn’t know what I was doing. I wonder if I’ll regret it in the end?”</p><p>Jon leaned down, pressed the tape recorder against his forehead and breathed into the warm cave between his limbs and the rest of his body. The recycled air flowed into him, suffocating him gently; he loved how this cavern muffled the sounds of traffic outside and emphasised the sound of Martin’s breathing beside him, the quiet exhales and the pause that always heralded the next inhale. He slept so peacefully, even after all that they’d spoken of, and Jon wanted nothing more than to do so with him, to forget all of these thoughts in his head, but...</p><p>”I know I’ve known him before,” he continued. ”I’ve known every inch of him, I’ve heard every tone of his voice, I’ve known how it feels like to hold him and love him. I loved him before today, I loved him before yesterday, I loved him before I remembered him. I remembered that I loved him this whole time, even when I couldn’t remember anything else. Maybe that sounds romantic, but it’s the worst thing I can imagine. It means I’m not supposed to be here. It means something happened, something... removed what was before and made this be instead. It’s the only thing that makes sense now. I can’t explain this away with a psychotic episode anymore. Not unless we’re sharing it together. I almost... I almost wish it had been my mind that was breaking. It would mean this world was real, but it isn’t.</p><p>Is anything here real? Am I real? Is... is he real?”</p><p>Jon reached out his hand and touched Martin’s hair, shifting it from his face to watch him for a moment’s time. His chest ached again in the most terrible way, twisted and constricted itself until he felt like he was choking.</p><p>”What if he isn’t?”</p><p>He pressed the backs of his fingers against Martin’s cheek and slowly moved them over his features down to his jaw and then his shoulder, and then down his arm until he touched his fist that was gripping the covers between them.</p><p>”What if he’s not here, not really? What if I’m alone? What if this is all happening... not inside my head, I don’t think so, but somewhere that pretends to be... familiar, pretends to be real, but isn’t? What if everyone around me - Basira, Martin, everyone I passed in the streets, everyone I spoke to, everyone I sat with in the bus or stood with in the underground - is a ghost, an illusion, a lie?”</p><p>He pulled back his hand and rested it over his shins, fingers curling up against his ankle again.</p><p>”Maybe my first instinct then should be to get out for my own sake, but it isn’t. What scares me is that if he’s not really here then he’s somewhere else and I’ve left him alone, and every moment I spend here with my own vision of him is a moment I’m separated from him wherever I was supposed to be, behind this fog, where I’m somebody else living a different life. I don’t think I’m a librarian anymore. I’m not sure what else I could be, but I don’t remember ever working in a library before. Sometimes I don’t feel... sometimes I get these - these urges, these... feelings that tell me I’m missing something about myself, too, that there’s something about me that isn’t right. I feel disconnected from it - like a torn coat patched with a different material. I know it’s not supposed to be there, but it is now, and it covers the hole, but I know the hole is there, or that it was, and I can’t ever be whole again. I feel hungry all the time, but I don’t know what for. It’s not food that I crave. It feels... violent. I feel violent. I feel drained and parched like I’ve not eaten or drank in days. And the more I dwell on these thoughts, these - these feelings, the more convinced I am that I don’t belong here.</p><p>All of this sounds crazy. It is... entirely possible I’ve gone mad. An ill person doesn’t always know that their delusions aren’t real. But it feels desperate to cling onto that hope, to keep wishing that the problem is inside of me rather than outside of me. And yet... a part of me doesn’t want to fight it. I was so happy last night, I... I felt so much hope. For what could be, for what might come next. For the ending to this story. It could be good, if I stayed, if I stopped craving for knowledge and resolution and understanding... if I just... let go.”</p><p>He closed his eyes.</p><p>”I could be happy here,” he whispered. ”End recording.”<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
”Jon? Jon.”</p><p>The world was too bright, and Jon didn’t want to participate in it.</p><p>”Wake up.”</p><p>It hadn’t been long enough. He wanted to sleep.</p><p>”Come on, Jon.”</p><p>His cheek was nudged, then pinched, then stretched. His mouth made a wet sound when it was released. He grunted.</p><p>”God, what do you want?” he asked in an irritated tone, shifting to his side and pulling up the blanket as he moved away from the annoyance.</p><p>Martin sighed.</p><p>”For you to be a productive member of society,” he answered impatiently, ”Come on, your alarm went off thirty minutes ago. I can’t let you oversleep.”</p><p>”Oversleep for what?”</p><p>”Hello, earth calling? You’re still employed and everything. You can’t just take a day off to sleep.”</p><p>”Technically -”</p><p>”No, I’m not listening. I can’t hear you right now. Funny how convenient that is? Get. Up!”</p><p>Jon suppressed a smile as he felt Martin’s hand digging under his body and the other wrapping around him. He was bruising - he knew that he was, he could feel every tear and sharp jab in his flesh - but he still put up a measure of resistance as Martin pulled him up from the bed and collapsed him over himself instead. Jon remained limp like a ragdoll: he peered up at Martin’s face from below, and Martin regarded him from above with a raised brow and a disimpressed expression.</p><p>”I can’t believe somebody let <em>you</em> be <em>my</em> boss,” he stated then.</p><p>”Martin,” Jon said, ”After last night - everything we talked about - do you think it’s too much to ask for if I don’t want to work at my fake job anymore?”</p><p>”I don’t think the world works like that.”</p><p>”Does it matter if the world isn’t real?”</p><p>Martin frowned. He crossed his arms over Jon’s chest and held him gently, but his body had tensed somewhat and his expression had turned disturbed, uncomfortable.</p><p>”I don’t like talking about this,” he said then. ”I don’t like - this not being real, Jon. I really don’t want to think about it right now.”</p><p>”Don’t you think it might be relevant?”</p><p>”To what? Your work schedule? Please.”</p><p>”I just - if this is not real, then the job’s not real, and if the job’s not real, then my alarm means nothing.”</p><p>”I know you’re making a good point but I really don’t like the implications, and I like it even less that you’re making me go through an existential crisis at seven in the morning just to skip work for sleep.”</p><p>”That really doesn’t sound like me, does it?” Jon huffed. Then he yawned, his arm lazily covering it up and then staying over his face to block off the light. ”I’ve barely had any sleep at all.”</p><p>”Now whose fault is that?”</p><p>”That’s really not fair, Martin.”</p><p>”I’m just saying. Nobody made you stay up and talk to your weird retro toy all night, did they?”</p><p>Jon peered over his arm at Martin, who was looking at him with some frustration in his expression.</p><p>”You were awake for that?”</p><p>”Not all of it,” Martin told him, ”but it was hard to stay asleep with you touching my face and all. I didn’t want to listen in so I tried to fall back asleep but it - really didn’t work with your doomsday predictions and - and everything else inbetween there. It didn’t really make me feel safe to go back to sleep, you know?”</p><p>Jon let his arm fall off his face and brought his hand up to Martin’s face instead.</p><p>”I want this to be real so bad,” he said quietly, looking Martin in the eye as he spoke. ”I want you to be real - I want us to be real.”</p><p>”I am real,” Martin told him with a hint of despair in his voice, ”I don’t know how to prove it or if there’s any way I can, but I’m the same as you, and I’m just as trapped here as you are. I’m real, Jon. We’re real. <em>This</em> -”</p><p>He gestured about the room.</p><p>”This might not be real. I don’t know. I can’t really tell any more than you can. But I am. I know I am. And I know that you are. Is it that hard to trust me?”</p><p>Jon shook his head.</p><p>”I want to, Martin -”</p><p>”Then believe,” Martin insisted.</p><p>Jon sighed.</p><p>”Alright.”</p><p>He pulled himself up from the bed and stretched his neck from side to side. He had a headache. He felt awful - like after a long night of partying, which he was sure he hadn’t been up to. Martin crept up behind him and brought his arms back around him, and Jon took a hold of his arm and rested his head back against him, against his unshaved cheek and jaw that prickled at his scalp through his hair.</p><p>”You really think it’s worth it to go back?” Jon asked then.</p><p>”To the library?” Martin asked. ”It’s the only lead we’ve got. I mean, something made us go there to begin with. It’s where this place <em>wants</em> us to be. And we have to ask Basira, too.”</p><p>”Alright. You make good points.”</p><p>”You know I’m right. Where else would you go? Back to sleep? That won’t help us solve this thing. That won’t help us get back to who we are.”</p><p>”I think it’s too late for that now anyway,” Jon sighed.</p><p>Martin huffed warmly. He pressed his face against Jon’s hair and Jon knew he’d closed his eyes from the silence that followed, and he felt so comfortable there that movement didn’t come into question; instead, he brought his hand behind Martin’s neck and caressed his skin there until he was finally ready to part. His absence felt cold on Jon’s skin even through the shirt he was wearing.</p><p>”Martin... do you want to go back? To who we were before this place?” he asked, turning around as Martin slid off the bed and back on his feet.</p><p>Martin shrugged.</p><p>”I don’t know yet. I don’t know who I was before. I don’t...” he hesitated a moment. ”I don’t think it was good, Jon. I don’t think... I was good. I don’t feel very positive about the person I used to be. I - I feel neutral about myself here, I guess? I like not really knowing. It feels like I can become something better now. Like I have hope, you know?”</p><p>Jon nodded.</p><p>”I’m not sure I’ll like what I’ll find if I go digging either,” he confessed, ”but it’s better than living a lie.”</p><p>”Is it, though?” Martin asked. ”Is it really? There’s nothing really wrong with this place. If you’re real and I’m real then probably most other people are real too, if not everyone. And if we can’t tell the difference...”</p><p>”But it’s not the same,” Jon insisted. ”I want to go back to what’s real. No matter how bad it is, it’s where I really should be.”</p><p>”And what’s real, Jon? What makes the ’real thing’ so real? The world? The people? Everything I touch here <em>feels</em> real. Everyone I’ve spoken to felt real. The buildings have interiors and the grass smells like grass and the rain makes you cold and wet. I think that’s real enough for me. I just - I’m scared that if I go back I’ll regret it.”</p><p>Jon frowned. He placed his feet on the floor and reached out his hand, taking Martin’s in it; he felt so solid and warm, his hand so soft and his grip so <em>desperate</em>.</p><p>”Would you follow me out?” he asked him, his voice both sincere and dead serious.</p><p>”I don’t know yet, Jon. But I don’t want to be alone again.”</p><p>Jon nodded.</p><p>”Would you <em>stay</em> for me?” Martin asked then, his voice breathless with dread. ”If we go through this, and what we find is bad, would you stay if I asked?”</p><p>”Maybe. I - I don’t know, Martin,” Jon replied honestly. ”I don’t want to live a lie, but I don’t want to leave you behind, either. I’m just worried -”</p><p>”That out there is a real me waiting for the real you, I know, I heard what you said to that thing last night.”</p><p>Jon nodded again.</p><p>”So what it really comes down to is whether I can play myself well enough to convince you that I am me, and if I fail, then you’ll leave me and go back to the world without me and then it’s my fault. That’s great, Jon. No pressure at all or anything.”</p><p>Martin pulled his hand back and took a step to the door. Jon wanted to stop him, but he was right; it wasn’t fair.</p><p>”Martin...”</p><p>”It’s fine. I’m fine, Jon. Come eat your breakfast.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Just another goddamn monster</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They brought their boxes of books to reorganize into a quiet corner in the sciences and maths section of library, one that they hoped people would visit rarely and not linger in, and set up on a low table with cushioned cubes for seats around it. Jon pulled up the purple cube and Martin the green one, and then Martin vanished for an odd fifteen minutes to brew them some tea in the breakroom while Jon did his best to convince his battered laptop to run for them this one time that he really needed it. While it gave its best impression of booting up, he wandered about the library pulling out books at seemingly random: he had no idea what he was looking for, but there was a certain pull that he could feel around some shelves and locations in the library that he followed blindly for the lack of anything better to go by. What was happening to them was weird enough and he had no other leads - why not trust his gut instinct? He brought back magazines and history books and one Latin dictionary that felt particularly ominous to his touch yet which he felt incredibly drawn to for a reason he couldn’t understand, and he piled all of those things upon the table they’d chosen. The remaining time he spent trying to avoid eye contact with a female university student picking out what appeared to be a semester’s worth of reading material from the shelves barely two feet away from where Jon was trying to settle down and resist the urge to check each object in the pile he’d built for spiders individually.</p>
<p>When Martin returned, he nearly bumped into the woman leaving their corner with her lap full of books to check out.</p>
<p>”Alright,” he breathed out when he’d put down the two aggressively rippling mugs of tea next to Jon’s pile, ”Didn’t expect anyone else to be here, but we are <em>fine</em>.”</p>
<p>He sat down and picked up the Latin dictionary from on top of the prints, and he opened it and flipped through some of the pages before looking up at Jon.</p>
<p>”And this is...?” he asked, and Jon shrugged.</p>
<p>”A start,” he answered plainly.</p>
<p>”Alright,” Martin sighed, ”Okay. I think we can work with this. Now - what are we looking for, exactly?”</p>
<p>Jon wished he knew. When he didn’t say anything, Martin specified: ”What is the exact nature of the unrealness we’re trying to find proof for, Jon? I don’t think we can find ourselves in these magazines, or this... this dictionary, but...”</p>
<p>”I picked these out because each of them was calling to me. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe I was chasing my own imagination. It doesn’t matter, because it’s the best we can do with what we’ve got,” Jon finally said. ”We need to find a pattern, Martin, something that gives us a hint about what we’re really looking at here. Where we are or where we <em>think</em> we are, or about the nature of what we’re facing. We’re looking for clues. For now, anything will do.”</p>
<p>”Alright,” Martin said again, ”That’s - not very clear, but I’ll do my best. This is what I do, you know? I - I’m pretty good at finding patterns and... and checking information and sources and - well, I work in a library, right? I must be good at reading. But I feel like it’s more than that. I feel like I’m <em>really</em> good at finding what we need.”</p>
<p>”That’s good, Martin. I trust that. I trust it because I just walked through half of this hall picking out books simply because I <em>felt</em> like I should be looking at them. If you feel like you can read them and find the reasons why I picked them out, all the better.”</p>
<p>”So, let’s put this team to the test, shall we?”</p>
<p>Jon nodded. Then he pulled the dictionary out of Martin’s hands and took it for himself.</p>
<p>”Hey,” Martin huffed, but Jon waved him off.</p>
<p>”I feel like this one’s just for me,” he said and began flipping through the pages. ”Start with something that looks like it has a <em>chance</em> of helping.”</p>
<p>He glanced at Martin just in time to see him rolling his eyes, but he didn’t argue and instead picked up a recent <em>Daily Mirror</em> from the pile and began reading it instead. Jon returned to his Latin dictionary, but there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about it except for the vague feeling of terror he had when he held it or had it near him. Every page was printed full of Latin words and their English equivalents or the other way around, and for its age, it was in a relatively good condition. Its front page had the same violet stamp as all the other books - <em>Hope Foundation Library - London</em> - and some pages were dog eared or marked by users over the course of the years the book had been in circulation, yet overall it seemed very benign indeed. Just when Jon was about to cast it aside, he spotted a page that had been written on, and although the book closed on it before he could stop it, he remembered the spot well enough and dug it out again in no time.</p>
<p>There was a single sentence upon the page: ”<em>memento vivere</em><em>.</em>”</p>
<p>For a moment, Jon was prepared to mark down each word and go through the dictionary to find their meanings. Then he realised two things almost exactly at the same time: firstly, he was sat in front of a computer, and secondly, he knew what the words meant already. He could understand them perfectly, in fact.</p>
<p>His head was aching again. The pounding was becoming more than a mild annoyance now: it was a growing pressure at his temples and a band tightening around his skull that was already burying into the bone. Jon lifted his hand to his forehead and rubbed at it idly, trying to drive the pain away with his fingertips. It didn’t budge. Yet even through it Jon could still sense that this page was the source of that feeling he got from the book: this very sentence had something wrong with it, if only he could have looked inside it to know what... He lay the book on the table and traced the letters with his fingertips as if trying to read more meaning to them through feeling. The ink remained silent and the marks the ballpoint pen had left behind mute and unmoving.</p>
<p>”Remember to live,” he muttered out loud.</p>
<p>”What did you say?”</p>
<p>”Remember to live. It’s written on this page. I want it to mean something, but I don’t know what.”</p>
<p>Martin looked at him over his newspaper.</p>
<p>”Remember to live?” he repeated the words, ”Well, it could mean - remember <em>to</em> live, as in, you must remember before you can live... if you really want it to relate to what we’re doing here, that is. Other than that it’s a common Latin phrase, I think... something you’d write on a post-it note and stick to your mirror when you’re going through a rough spot in life. Like ’carpe diem’, but not popularised by a sad movie. Maybe someone was having a tough time on their Latin course or broke up with their significant other or something.”</p>
<p>”Maybe,” Jon agreed half-heartedly. He closed the book and reached for his tea instead, hoping some liquid would help to take the edge off the throbbing pain in his head. ”Are you finding anything?”</p>
<p>”Nothing yet. Just a bunch of gossip and bad journalism,” Martin said with a shrug.</p>
<p>Jon nodded. He drank in silence for some time before picking up one of the magazines and opening it up from a random page. He could barely focus anymore from the headache, but this kind of text hardly required his full concentration. They were looking for patterns... patterns could only exist in bigger pictures. For a bigger picture, he’d have to read a lot of articles.</p>
<p>It took time.</p>
<p>Hours passed, and so did the occasional visitor to their quiet corner. The tea was long gone by the time they reached the middle of the resources Jon had gathered, even with Martin spending most of his time online on the laptop. Jon preferred the paper publications - at least they didn’t have flashing adverts that made the pain behind his eyes double in the span of seconds. He was phasing out over an article regarding historic renovations in central London when the raw sound of someone clearing her throat made him nearly jump out of his skin.</p>
<p>”Jesus, Basira,” he breathed out with his magazine now resting over the empty mug he’d thrown over.</p>
<p>”Reading something spooky?” Basira asked.</p>
<p>She joined them by pulling herself a cube - a blue one - and set her gaze on Martin, who was scrolling a news article with his face squished against the back of his palm.</p>
<p>”No,” Martin said wearily, ”Just news and entertainment. How are you doing?”</p>
<p>”Well, it’s been quiet for two hours. Nobody wants to borrow any books, it seems, so I came looking for you two.”</p>
<p>”We’re... keeping busy,” Jon said, and he wasn’t sure if the words were meant to be defensive or not.</p>
<p>Basira glanced at the boxes of books they had done nothing to organize and return to their shelves.</p>
<p>”Uh-huh,” she said, and Jon glared at her.</p>
<p>”Hey, Basira...” Martin started then, finally lifting his face from his hand; it left a red mark over his cheek.</p>
<p>”Yeah?”</p>
<p>”I want to ask you something weird and - really personal, actually. Is that alright?”</p>
<p>Basira lifted her brows and leaned back on her cube.</p>
<p>”Alright, sure. What is it?”</p>
<p>”How long have you been a librarian? Like - precisely.”</p>
<p>”Uh, I don’t know, actually,” she said with a shrug. ”I suppose for quite a while now. Why are you asking?”</p>
<p>”No - when I said precisely I meant precisely. Can you tell me exactly when you started here?” Martin insisted.</p>
<p>Basira frowned. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, and then she closed it and shook her head instead.</p>
<p>”Well, don’t you think that’s... rather weird?” Martin offered.</p>
<p>”I don’t really want to think about it,” Basira said a little too quickly.</p>
<p>Martin lifted his brows.</p>
<p>”So you’ve noticed, then. That you don’t really know where you come from, or how long you’ve been here, or -”</p>
<p>”I said I don’t like to think about it, Martin.”</p>
<p>Jon lifted his head. He exchanged looks with Martin, who shrugged and returned to Basira.</p>
<p>”Okay, Basira. I get it. Thanks for answering, anyway. I - I understand. I do.”</p>
<p>Basira nodded. She hesitated a moment before pulling herself up, and now she had a strange look on her features when she looked at the mess they’d made of the table. She regarded it for some time before appearing to shake it all off of her shoulders, and she turned to leave.</p>
<p>”Try to empty one of those today at least, yeah? Less work for me.”</p>
<p>”We’ll get to it,” Martin promised.</p>
<p>Once she was gone, they took a moment to stare at each other in silence.</p>
<p>”So...” Martin started.</p>
<p>Jon nodded.</p>
<p>”She knows it, too. Martin, how long has she been here?”</p>
<p>”I don’t know. She was here before I got here, and - well - I just assumed she’d always been here, that she knew what was going on or that she was like - like she belonged here, you know? But I guess she doesn’t either.”</p>
<p>”Are you finding anything?” Jon asked.</p>
<p>Martin turned his gaze back to the laptop’s screen and tilted his head uncertainly.</p>
<p>”Maybe? I mean... it’s - it’s just a hunch, Jon, but I think I’m starting to get it.”</p>
<p>”I’m listening.”</p>
<p>”Well... everything seems to be normal, except that... there’s a lot of... and at first I thought it was just the kinds of articles I’m reading, or the kinds of publications, but then I went deeper and it seems to be a trend regardless of where I’m looking, you know? I feel like there’s a lot of articles about... about recovery, about conquering the odds, about coming on top of impossible circumstances... everything seems to be really focused on the positive, and that feels <em>odd</em> to me, like - unnatural kind of odd.”</p>
<p>”I’m still listening.”</p>
<p>Martin squinted at Jon before continuing.</p>
<p>”There’s a patron here,” he started then, ”Her name is Julia, and she’s got cancer. She likes to read books about herbal medicine and traditional healing, but she talks about her chemo treatments, so she’s not - you know, she still believes in science. She’s about... maybe 23, 24? She’s really young.”</p>
<p>Jon nodded.</p>
<p>”Anyway, I think she’s... I mean, it doesn’t look good. She looks like she maybe doesn’t have a long time left. But every time she comes back here, she just seems so full of hope, like she’s shining with it. Like recovery is just around the corner, you know? Like this book is going to be the one that cures her. And it’s really sad, actually. She comes almost every day. Today’s going to be the day. Tomorrow’s going to be the day. The day after is going to... you get the point.”</p>
<p>Jon nodded again.</p>
<p>”I don’t... want to say this, Jon,” Martin continued, ”I really don’t want to talk about my feelings or - or my anything, really, but it’s just... I feel the same way. Like tomorrow I’m going to be a better person. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to you, Jon, tomorrow I’m going to be brave enough to send you that text message. Tomorrow will change everything, it’ll be the start of something better.”</p>
<p>”So what you’re saying is...” Jon said, his words drifting off, but Martin nodded.</p>
<p>”Exactly,” he replied, ”Everything here seems awfully focused on <em>hope. </em>I know what I left behind wasn’t good. I can still feel it all crawling around in me somewhere, like an old bruise that’s still sore to touch. It’s why I hate the thought of going back to it. That’s why it scares me, and why I feel like... this place is better. Because tomorrow <em>I’m</em> going to be better, Jon. Just like Julia. Just like... everybody else here. Have you ever felt that way?”</p>
<p>Jon straightened up. The cube let out an almost inaudible hissing sound as its cushions readjusted underneath him, and he lowered his fingertips to trace its faux-leather cover, trying out its texture to occupy his senses as he looked back to the days he’d spent in this place. The only thing he’d felt on the first day had been dread and confusion, but ever since then... hadn’t he felt the same way? That somehow, tomorrow would be better - he’d find a way to talk to Martin, and he had, hadn’t he, and together they’d have a much brighter future ahead of them. Just last night he’d been torn between his doubts and that sincere, driving lust for another day with Martin, a better day, leading to a better week, a better month, a better <em>year</em>... Hadn’t he felt so full of hope, even in the midst of his fears? Wasn’t that hope slowly conquering the terrors that lurked at the edges of his consciousness? Hadn’t the rain stopped after the very first day, and wasn’t today bright and clear?</p>
<p>A flash of pain crossed his consciousness and he lowered his head into his hands.</p>
<p>”Jon?”</p>
<p>”I’m... fine, it’s just a headache.”</p>
<p>”You should eat something.”</p>
<p>The ache was almost overpowering now. In fact, Jon was feeling nauseous from it. He shook his head as slowly as he could to spare it from further agony.</p>
<p>”I don’t think that would fix it. I think - this is something else.”</p>
<p>”Then it’s not just a headache, is it.”</p>
<p>Jon peered at Martin from between his fingers. He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. He was right. It wasn’t <em>just</em> a headache: it was an all-consuming sensation of weakness and hunger that was tearing at his very humanity, hollowing him from the inside out, and... the longer it went on, the more clear the path ahead of him became. He needed to talk to someone - find one of those people who were drawing him in when he passed them by, and he needed to feast on whatever it was that they could give him, or face the consequences of not doing so.</p>
<p>”I... need to take some time, Martin. I’m going for a walk. The air - I think I need some fresh air.”</p>
<p>And with that, he was standing, he was walking, leaving; he didn’t hear what Martin said to him, but he was sure his unceremonious departure had left him hurt, worried and confused.</p>
<p>The worst part was that Jon couldn’t really find it in him to care. The pull that was now guiding him through the library was too strong, like a rope around his throat that had him walking a path already laid out for him. It took him to the breakroom and to the bag he’d left there, and when he blindly dug into its contents, he found his tape recorder there - and the tape he’d had in his pocket the first day he’d arrived there.</p>
<p>With shaking hands, he inserted it into the machine and started listening.<br/><br/></p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <em><br/>Statement of Jonathan Sims, regarding the disappearance of two archival assistants at the Magnus Institute, London.</em>
</p>
<p><em>I... don’t know where I should start. Basira is... still gone. She went missing two weeks ago and we haven’t found a trace of her yet. Her disappearance has been reported to the police department, but I do not hold any high hopes for her recovery through traditional methods, no offence to the forces currently trying to locate her, of course. When she vanished, I didn’t think there was anything </em>natural<em> about her disappearance. I think so even less now.</em></p>
<p><em>My... Martin. Martin is... he’s gone. He didn’t come home last night. I - I don’t - I can’t think clearly. I know I need to do my best for him now to find him, but I can’t pretend like this isn’t personal. It </em>is<em> personal. And somehow, I think that this is my fault. Again. That I’m - I’m the reason - I’ve been digging into the wrong things, I’ve been </em>knowing<em> the wrong things, I’ve touched something dangerous and now both Basira and Martin are gone. Did I invite this thing to us? Did I challenge it by acknowledging its existence?</em></p>
<p><em>No. I - maybe. Maybe I did, alright? Maybe I did. If it works like the Fears do, then maybe, yes. You’d think - you’d think if there was a counter-force to the evil in this world it would be good, right? Not selfish, not hungry, not mad with its own power, and least of all you’d think it would be taking victims like a common monster, but... but of course it’s all just the same. And maybe that’s why we’ve never paid attention to them before, these - these ”counter-forces”. If it walks like a monster, talks like a monster and looks like a monster then it </em>is<em> a monster, isn’t it? Just another goddamn monster.</em></p>
<p><em>But it’s not a fear. Not like the Vast is a fear or the Watcher is a fear or the Buried is a fear. No, this is different. </em>Hope<em> is different. It feasts on the failures and shortcomings of the Fears, on the targets that escape their traps and think that they can go on living, start again. It feeds on the victims of abuse and neglect who think that their redemption is crawling closer. You find it in the filthiest corners of human society where the weakest and most vulnerable people of our nation are beaten and raped and tortured, and even as their fears are sucking them dry, hope is there to take what gets left over. It’s a magnifying glass focusing light on a desiccated corpse, setting it alight for its own amusement. It delights in repeated suffering, in the rollercoaster of horror where a victim thinks they’ve escaped their personal hell... only to be dragged back in again. Those little glimpses of light that peek through the prison walls further the despair you feel when you inevitably stumble and fall, but the sweet embrace of the smallest of hopes can take over everything else, conquer the worst fears... You see your shackles loosening, and you think you can slip free. That jump of your heart, that rush in your blood, that adrenaline that gets you struggling against it and the all-consuming triumph that takes over when you feel the chains falling off you... that’s what it feeds on. When you’re captured again, when you’re thrown back in your cell, it waits patiently. You’ll feel those feelings again, and when you do, no matter how desperate your circumstances are, it’s ready to embrace you again. It’s ready to feed on you, ready to burn you until there’s nothing left to take. And then it abandons you again. Leaves you in the darkness with </em>them.</p>
<p><em>I think... I think I did this to them. To Basira and Martin, I mean. They were in the way, in its</em> <em>way</em> <em>to</em> me<em>. I’m the one it wants. The Archivist. I’ve known so much fear... how much hope could it drink out of me if it had the chance? I wish it would have just taken me. Not Martin. He didn’t... he’s suffered enough.</em></p>
<p><em>I won’t let it take anyone else. I’m tired of monsters eating everything and everyone I love. I’m tired of being targeted over and over again only for the mark on me to ricochet pain and suffering all around me and onto everyone around me who did nothing to deserve it and who </em>don’t<em> deserve it. I will find a way in, and then I will find a way out.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>I don’t think there’s anyone left here to stop me.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>End recording.<br/><br/></em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p><br/>The crowd had lost the power it had had on Jon. Now it was a moving mass of individuals he navigated through like the books in the library, running his gaze over their faces and shapes like titles, looking for something that would quench the thirst that made his head swim and his limbs tremble. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t breathe. Remembering hurt more than anything, and it was all flowing back into him now, who he was and who he was supposed to be, and the agonizing pain in his skull had only grown worse for it. This place didn’t feed him, and yet, he needed to be fed.</p>
<p>”Excuse me?”</p>
<p>The woman turned to him, her hand staying on the door that she’d been about to enter through. Jon couldn’t let her. She had to stay outside.</p>
<p>”Excuse me.”</p>
<p>”Are you alright?” she asked him, and he faked a smile for her.</p>
<p>”I’m fine. It’s not an emergency. I need to ask you something. I’m - sorry, I really can’t stop it.”</p>
<p>”Stop - stop what? I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I - I should go.”</p>
<p>”You can go,” Jon reassured her, ”After you’ve told me about that night you were supposed to be watching your brother.”</p>
<p>She froze. Her hand slipped down from the door and she just stood there for a moment, unmoving, her eyes glassed over. Then she appeared to recover, and she turned her eyes away from him and nodded. The bright sunlight did nothing to cover the sudden paleness of her skin.</p>
<p>”It was too hot that summer,” she began, her voice quiet and shaky. ”There would later be a forest fire near where I used to live then, and the ashes would rain down on our rooftop. I remember how, before then, the rain just wouldn’t come. There was no shade to be seen. It was a Friday, and my parents had arranged a night out with a couple they knew well and were close with. They used to go out a lot before that Friday, so this wasn’t out of the ordinary at all. My brother -”</p>
<p>”Sorry,” came a voice that cut her off, ”Sorry. Jon, can I have - please - a moment? I need you to come with me. Right now.”</p>
<p>”Martin, I’m in the middle of -”</p>
<p>”I know what you’re in the middle of,” Martin cut him off. Then he smiled awkwardly at the woman who seemed to be recovering from some kind of a trance - she looked at them like she wasn’t entirely sure where she was. ”Sorry about that, he’s - too curious for his own good. Come on, Jon, let’s go.”</p>
<p>He grabbed a firm hold of Jon’s sleeve and pulled him forwards. They nearly ran for a block before he found an alley to bring them in: it smelled badly of urine, but Martin didn’t seem to care.</p>
<p>”What are you doing?” he hissed at Jon.</p>
<p>”Why are you stopping me?” Jon asked him in turn. That question burned at him brighter than the guilt of what he’d just nearly done to that woman - or maybe he had done it to her already, despite Martin’s intervention, and the only thing he’d missed was the terrible satisfaction her suffering would have brought him.</p>
<p>”Because I’ve got half a brain left and you apparently don’t. Why are you here? Why are you <em>hunting</em> in broad daylight like some rabid werewolf? Jon, I know this is hard, I know you’re struggling, I’m struggling too, but -”</p>
<p>”Hold on,” Jon cut him off now, ”Did you listen to the tape, too? Do you - <em>know</em> what I know?”</p>
<p>”Yes! Yes, I did, I did listen to the tape because it was the only goddamn thing you left behind when you went and vanished! And thanks for that, by the way, because now I do remember everything I really didn't want to. In fact, I remember entirely too much, and I’m just wondering why the hell you wouldn’t ask me since I’m already - I’m already fucking traumatized, instead of running at some poor bastard who definitely did <em>nothing</em> to deserve it!”</p>
<p>Jon lowered his gaze.</p>
<p>”I didn’t... think, Martin. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>”Don’t lie to me. Don’t you fucking lie to me, Jonathan.”</p>
<p>Jon hated hearing the disappointment in Martin’s voice. He hated hearing the pain in it, and the fear - it was the anger that bit at him the least. He knew he deserved it, and he took it as it came. He was supposed to be better than this. But it was this place... the way it made him feel so cut off from everything, and yet the more he came back to his old self, the more he felt the hunger and the drain of simply being here, being here without sustaining that <em>need</em> within him. The tape had been the last straw, he realised; he could barely recall leaving the library, the call of this woman’s story had been too compelling to disobey.</p>
<p>”I’m not lying to you,” he said then, slowly and carefully, calculating his words so as to make sure that he wouldn’t now, either. ”I didn’t think. But you’re not wrong... if I’d been thinking, I wouldn’t have come to you anyway. It wouldn’t have made any difference. I don’t want to hurt you. It’s the last thing I want to do. You’ve told me not to <em>know</em> things about you so I - and you said it yourself, you weren’t sure if you wanted to go back to who you were before. You weren’t sure if you wanted to leave.”</p>
<p>”And I’m not! I’m not, Jon, I don’t know if I want to leave. But it doesn’t mean that you can hurt somebody else just to spare me from some pain. Do you not know how much <em>that</em> hurts me? Do you think I don’t feel the guilt for - for what I could have prevented?”</p>
<p>”Well,” Jon sighed dryly, ”you did prevent that one.”</p>
<p>”Did I?” Martin asked, but Jon couldn’t give him an honest answer. ”Jon, look at me.”</p>
<p>He did. Martin’s gaze fixed into his eyes and for a moment he saw through him, into him, into that swirling mess of emotions and hopes and fears and longings, and he tried his hardest not to hear and not to see anything that wasn’t meant for him, but some things came through nevertheless.</p>
<p>”You want to hear a statement, Jon?” Martin asked him, and his voice was steady and stained with sadness.</p>
<p>Jon nodded.</p>
<p>”Then I’ll give you one.”<br/><br/></p>
<hr/>
<p><br/>”Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding an encounter with the entity hereon identified as ’Hope’. Recorded directly from subject while under the influence of the forementioned entity. Statement begins.”</p>
<p>Jon rested the recorder between them. Their knees were almost touching, both sitting cross-legged on the pillows set out for children to enjoy stories told by the library staff twice a week. The pillows were cozy and oversized even for an adult - a child would have found them absolutely delightful, like little clouds floating across the linoleum floors.</p>
<p>Martin shook as he drew breath. He closed his eyes and reached out his hand between them, and Jon offered him his own, which he took and held tightly as he began speaking.</p>
<p>”I don’t remember much,” he said, ”Barely anything from before I came here. I remember the man I was, though. I remember how much I hated him, hated how weak he was, and how bleak his life was. I remember I felt like I didn’t deserve the good things that came to me. When I think back to being that man, I don’t think I’d want him to have those things, either. I hate him. I can’t stand him. All that self-hatred... have I really carried it with me this whole time?”</p>
<p>Jon’s grip of his hand tightened. Their fingers entwined, and he began stroking the side of Martin’s hand with his fingers, hoping to bring him an ounce of comfort to carry him through his statement. He knew how much those things could hurt, how much bad they could bring back to the surface, even things long buried that still cast their long shadows onto those that carried them. He could feel that pain the same as he could feel the fear - Martin’s fear of being that man, of being the boy he had been, of both having and losing the things he loved and tried to hold onto, and the terror he felt when he thought that maybe he didn’t deserve any of it at all. That even Jon himself... was something that he shouldn’t have touched, was something that he was corrupting with his presence.</p>
<p>It was a fear Jon knew well like a mirror back at Martin as he fed these feelings, these fears towards him.</p>
<p>”But I do remember everything since I came here,” Martin continued. His voice was choked, and his nails were digging into Jon’s hand. His skin was growing slippery with sweat. ”Again, that oblivion that I hate so much... that I hate and love, and that I’m so afraid of getting lost into again. I can’t help it, when I lose myself I feel so much better, it’s like - it’s like I’m finally free. But I don’t want it. I’ve already made my choice. I don’t want to be part of the Lonely anymore. I don’t want to live that life, I’d rather remember and feel the pain than be without it, and yet I... I gave into it. Didn’t I? I didn’t go looking for the truth before you came here. It’s... it’s different here. It’s not as bad.</p>
<p>I guess I just... woke up in my apartment one morning. I live alone, no surprise there, and I have a nice cozy home. I thought that something had changed, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I was - scared, I was really scared, because I couldn’t remember who I was or where I’d been the night before or where I worked or who my family was. It was all just wiped away from me. Then I came here, to the Library, and I suddenly felt alright again. I didn’t <em>need</em> to know who I’d been before because I could be better now, I could build someone worth remembering. I’ve read to the children here, on these same pillows. They loved the stories I read, even when I was improvising the endings, and - one time, I just told a story out of my head, it wasn’t anything special but they still loved it, and they wanted more, and for the first time I... I had an audience. It felt good. It felt really, really good - to be looked at with that expectation... to have them react just right to everything I was reading to them. Stories, poems... my own poems. And my poems here, they’re not as dark as they were where we came from. I don’t write out of sadness anymore. I write out of... hope.</p>
<p>I think that’s what clued me in on what was going on here, why it was so easy for me to pick up on the scent. Its power is so strong over me, I can barely resist it at all. And then I heard your tape, Jon. I knew when I picked up the tape that I shouldn’t listen to it - something was telling me not to, that something really bad would happen if I did, but you left me alone and I... I didn’t know what else to do. You wouldn’t answer your phone. I was scared. I was <em>already</em> scared, so what worse could happen if I followed the trail?</p>
<p>Now I know. I know that this is the worst thing that could have happened to me. You asked me this morning if I’d come back with you when we found our way, wherever ’back’ really was. Now I know that going back there means becoming that man again... that man that I despise. I don’t want it, I don’t want anything to do with him or that rotten world, I don’t want any of its pain and I don’t want the never-ending hopelessness and the struggle that we can’t win and I don’t want the fear and the tears and I don’t want the memories, but if I stay here, I’ll lose you. I hate that I know which one is worse. I hate - I hate knowing that following you is the option I don’t want to take. That this time, I’m really losing myself.</p>
<p>I feel so much better here. I could be so much more, I could be someone I can respect. I don’t have to remember all the times I’ve failed in the past because none of that exists here. I don’t need to remember how my own mother looked at me, like she could see all the things about me that I see when I look in the mirror, and... and I don’t have to hurt here, Jon, I really just do feel like there’s hope for me.</p>
<p>I know it’s not real. I know none of this is real. The people here are - they’re real, just as real as I am. But this world isn’t. I’m scared of how little I care. It’s so much better. Just reading our magazines... all the articles about <em>good</em> things, about bad things turning better, about all the ways we’re improving... not the constant stream of catastrophes and wars and suffering and terror. There really is light at the end of this tunnel.</p>
<p>I think... I think that’s it. I don’t have a good ending to this story, I’m afraid. I haven’t finished it yet. But - I know whichever way it ends, it’ll hurt me. It’ll take something from me that I can’t get back. It’s either you or hope, Jon. And I... I can’t lose hope again.”</p>
<p>Jon wanted to cast the recorder across the room and tear into the books sitting in neat rows all around them. He wanted to shout and he wanted to pin his nails into Martin and drag him out of here with him. Instead, he turned to face the little whirring machine between them and spoke: ”Statement ends.”</p>
<p>The button clicked again, and they were left in silence. Martin reached his other hand across the little space between their pillows and took Jon’s, and Jon allowed him to do so, and he felt a chaos within himself. The hurt from Martin’s words lingered within him like a web of shattered glass over everything else, but beyond it was the deep satisfaction they’d given him all the same, that sensation of fulfillment and sated desire that nothing else quite matched. Even beyond that he felt his fears becoming a part of him like a piece of a puzzle falling into an ever-expanding picture. It was exhausting, it was too much, and he wanted to lie down.</p>
<p>”Will you stay with me, Jon?” Martin asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.</p>
<p>”I can’t,” Jon said.</p>
<p>And he was sure of it now.<br/><br/></p>
<hr/>
<p><br/>He was afraid to hold Martin too tightly, but the thought of letting him move even just a little away from him was like a stabbing pain in Jon's gut. His arms held the man within like an iron cage, that's how it felt to him, and Martin rested there quiet and with his head tucked under Jon's chin. The bedroom was silent and dark, but the night sky was a deep shade of blue when Jon cast his eyes towards it, the curtains still open enough to let the outside world in just a little bit at a time.</p>
<p>"Will you promise me you won't forget me?" Martin asked, his voice muffled against Jon's own body.</p>
<p>"I'm never going to forget you. I can't, even if I ever wanted to, Martin. You're... a part of me. Everything you've said and done, everything you felt and gave to me, I won't lose that."<br/>He swallowed.<br/>"But you'll forget me."</p>
<p>"I won't, Jon. I promise."</p>
<p>"No, it's... you can't choose it. I'll fade, because you know I won't be coming back. There's no hope in my memory, or the memory of what we've been together. You'd just feel... pain, Martin. Longing. So this place will remove any trace of me. Give it a month and you won't... you won't even know I was here."</p>
<p>"Do you just <em>know </em>that now?" Martin asked, lifting his head a little.</p>
<p>Jon nodded, his chin scraping against the top of Martin's head.<br/>"Yes. I think so."</p>
<p>"Funny how that works."<br/>Martin thought for a moment.<br/>"I really don't like that thought."</p>
<p>"That I know things again?"</p>
<p>"No," Martin countered, "That I'll lose your memory. I think - I think that one belongs to <em>me</em>. I think it's mine, and this place, or this entity, I don't think it has any business taking that from me."</p>
<p>"Does that change things?" Jon asked, and Martin sighed.</p>
<p>"I thought about it for a moment. I want to say - maybe? But I can't, because that's what this place wants. That's what it feeds off of. If I say maybe, then I'm just giving you hope and I can't know if that's really me speaking or if I'm just doing what I'm supposed to in order to make you feed this world," he reasoned.</p>
<p>Jon ran his hand through Martin's hair and buried his mouth into it, seeking out the warmth of his body to plant a kiss amongst the waves there. He closed his eyes and breathed him in, his whole body aching in a wholly different manner to which it had ached when he hadn't fed it. This was different, and although it didn't feel like he was withering away from it, he could feel it echoing in his bones and his heart felt like it was literally breaking apart.</p>
<p>"The thing is..." Martin continued after a while, but stopped in order to seek out Jon's jaw with his mouth; he planted a kiss on it and Jon bent his head to meet his lips with his own, and they kissed, and the kiss lingered until they were both out of breath in the little space they'd created, and Jon's neck ached and Martin's had to ache even more. He started again: "The thing is, Jon, I don't want to make this choice for you. We're framing it all wrong. Of course it's... I don't want to think about anything else. I don't want to lose you. It's - I think - just the thought of it, of never seeing you again, it kills me. Even if I know I won't even remember, that that pain will go away, but that's just it - it's the same thing that the Lonely already gave me. I can forget."</p>
<p>"But now you don't have to be afraid."</p>
<p>Martin nodded.<br/>"I don't. I don't have to be afraid anymore, and it doesn't have to mean I can't be happy ever again. It doesn't have to mean I can't connect with anyone ever again. Maybe... I might find someone here, someone else who's like me, and love him. Right? I mean, it's not impossible."</p>
<p>Jon wanted to scream.<br/>"Anyone would be lucky to have you," he said instead.<br/>His voice was monotone and hollow.</p>
<p>"So does it really matter if some greater power is feeding off of me the whole time? If I'm happy, and nothing bad happens to me here. I know... I know there's a chance things will go horribly wrong, but the promise is there, isn't it? That I'll live happily ever after and I never have to care about the real world again."</p>
<p>This time, Jon couldn't say anything. He didn't have it in him. Instead he pulled up from the little nest they'd built and brought his knees up to his chest again, and he leaned his head down and breathed out the pain that was crushing him from the inside. Martin followed him; he placed his palm over his back and stroked it gently over and over again, but his touch brought Jon little comfort.</p>
<p>"I don't want you to think that you don't matter," Martin said then, his voice quiet and soothing. "I love you, Jon. I don't remember everything but I remember that loving you is... it's the best thing I've ever felt. It's the most hope I've ever had, and - and it's beautiful, and there's nothing like it, and I don't think I'll ever feel anything like it again. It just... I should make this choice for me, you know? One last time."</p>
<p>Jon nodded. His nose pressed into his knee and he could feel the cartilage twisting painfully, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Every fiber of his being wanted to tell Martin that he didn't have to choose - that he'd stay, stay in the gut of this creature and feed it into eternity with him, that he'd keep him close and nothing would ever change, but he couldn't lie to himself. He knew too much. Martin didn't have to. He didn't bear the same burdens, and even though Jon could feel his, he would never carry Martin's the way Martin did.</p>
<p>"What if something goes wrong?" he asked then, lifting his head and turning to face the man he loved. "If you don't remember me, who will you go to for help?"</p>
<p>"Basira, maybe?" Martin offered, "She's good at figuring things out. I'm sure we'd come up with something, and - Jon, I don't think she's coming out, either."</p>
<p>"I don't think she is," Jon agreed. Then he readjusted, leaning his weight against Martin and resting his head on his shoulder instead. He felt so fucking weak, like there wasn't any fight left in him at all. "Do you really think things will be better for you here?"</p>
<p>"That's just it, Jon, I - I can't tell. I don't know. I <em>hope </em>that they would be. Do you think that should be a red flag?"</p>
<p>"Maybe."<br/>Jon closed his eyes. No, he wasn't strong enough for this.<br/>"I don't want to lose you," he said.</p>
<p>Martin's arm moved around him and he held him tightly for a moment, just as tightly as Jon had held him before.<br/>"I don't want to lose you, either. Jon, have you - have you figured out how to, well, how to get out of here yet?"</p>
<p>Jon nodded.<br/>"Yes," he told him, "I have."</p>
<p>"What is it?"</p>
<p>"<em>Memento vivere</em>. Remember to live. You just have to remember - remember what <em>living</em> was like."</p>
<p>"So what you're telling me is that we're <em>not</em> living," Martin said, "Does that mean that we're - dead?"</p>
<p>Jon shook his head.<br/>"No. Not yet. But like everything else that falls into one of these traps, eventually, we will be. It... drains you of what you are, your life force, your everything. It takes what it needs to survive, and it doesn't care what happens with the rest. You told me about Julia, the cancer patient. You know she won't recover. And that's... it, Martin. Eventually, she'll die here. No one will know what happened to her. She'll never have a proper funeral. She doesn't have to remember the ones she left behind but they'll remember her and they'll never forget. That's what will happen to you, too. I can't... I can't think about it. I don't want to. But it's your choice. I... it's not my place to take it from you."</p>
<p>Martin was silent for some time, his fingers tangling up in Jon's hair and then falling back down his shoulders until his palm was rubbing at his tense muscles there, providing a little comfort and much-needed contact, a reminder that he was still there and alive and well beside him.</p>
<p>"It's better than the Lonely," Martin finally said.</p>
<p>Jon nodded.<br/>"I really think... I think that you could be happy here. What you told me - what I felt when you told it to me - I know how much these things mean to you, and how afraid you are of losing them. I want you to come with me, I want it more than anything, but I know that it's a selfish desire. I want you with me for me. I don't know what option is the best for you. I just... desperately wish it was the one I'm choosing."</p>
<p>"Maybe there isn't a best option," Martin said slowly, "Maybe it really comes down to just what I want more. And if that's the case, then - I'm not any less selfish than you are. When I think of it that way, of course I want to come with you. I don't want to face up with my reality, but the last thing I ever want to do is hurt you, and it kills me to know that if I choose to stay... you'll hurt and I won't even know that you exist. Like I said, I really don't like that thought."</p>
<p>"And this is why we're not choosing for me," Jon reminded him.</p>
<p>"Yes. Right. I'm - I don't know, Jon. I really don't know."<br/>He sighed and let his arm drop from Jon's form, and he returned it over his half-crossed legs.<br/>"When are you leaving?"</p>
<p>"I don't know," Jon told him honestly, "I'm trying not to <em>know</em> enough to break through by accident, but I don't know how long I can hold it back."</p>
<p>"So you staying with me was never really an option to begin with."</p>
<p>Jon shook his head.<br/>"Not really. I could try, but... I don't want to."</p>
<p>Martin nodded.<br/>"I know."</p>
<p>"I don't want to prolong this. For my own sake, I... if you're staying, I have to let you go. I have to leave so that I don't - so that it doesn't break me. I'll survive it, Martin, but I don't want the pain either, so whenever you've made your choice, I'm making mine."</p>
<p>"Alright then," Martin said. He drew a long breath and closed his eyes. "Guess this is it."</p>
<p>Jon lifted his head and watched him for a while, dreading the moment another word would fall from his lips, but in the silence he brushed his nose against his face and kissed him again and let his palm curve around his cheek and he held him close again. He wished he could have closed his eyes and focused on just how Martin felt, on his presence and how overwhelming it was against him, but he was afraid this would be the last time he'd ever see him, and that eventually he'd forget the details of his face so he watched instead, watched and let it all become a vivid memory in his mind. All through it Martin simply breathed against him, his brows lightly knitted and mouth tightly closed if not for the one time his tongue wet the stretch of his lower lip.</p>
<p>"I wonder," Martin said then, his voice barely more than a murmur, "what the real difference is between love and hope? I'm afraid of losing both... but it feels like the same thing. Without you, I'm lost. Without hope, I'm nothing. But I'd still have you, wouldn't I?"</p>
<p>His eyes opened, and there was a clarity in them that Jon hadn't expected. Martin watched him, his gaze keen and sharp, and he reached his hand to touch Jon's face and he pulled them together, their foreheads touching gently in the middle. Then he closed his eyes again and continued speaking.</p>
<p>"When I first came here, you were the person I reached out to when I was afraid. I knew I loved you before I knew I had hope, when the only thing I could feel was <em>fear</em>. It was the thing that led me forwards, that guided me when I needed it. You didn't even have to be here... I didn't have to remember what you looked like or your voice or how your touch makes me feel, and I still thought of you first, because I knew that when I'm scared I can count on you. How is that... different? How is that different from hope? Is it just a different form of it? And if all of that is hope, then what do I feel for you?"</p>
<p>Their noses brushed together and Martin kissed him, but this time the kiss was short and desperate.</p>
<p>"I don't want to lose you, Jon."</p>
<p>"I don't want to let you go."</p>
<p>"I want to remember what it was like," Martin breathed out, "to feel this for the first time. I want to remember how I loved you then. I want to remember how I met you, and how I felt when you loved me back. I want to go back. I do. I want to know that again. I want to remember."</p>
<p>"Then... remember," Jon told him, and he took a hold of his hand and held it tightly in his own. "All you have to do is just... go back."</p>
<p>Martin nodded.<br/>"I'm ready."</p>
<p>"Are you sure?"</p>
<p>They peered at each other, both much too close to see the other clearly. Martin smiled.<br/>"I can always come back, can't I? If I decide that I hate you and I regret my decision."</p>
<p>"What about you? You said you didn't want to be the man that you know you were back there."</p>
<p>"I think I can work with that. I think I - I can do it, as long as you still love me when I'm him again. I don't think you're stupid, you know? So... so there's probably something to it."</p>
<p>Jon chuckled. He wanted it to hide the tears in his eyes.<br/>"You're an idiot, Martin," he breathed out.</p>
<p>"And I love you," Martin said; his voice was breaking.</p>
<p>
  <em>I love you too.</em>
</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. It rains again</h2></a>
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<p>The next time Jon opened his eyes and saw the rain through the curtains, he knew that he'd come <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkP6Tf79UrM">home</a>.</p><hr/>
<p> </p>
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